A Knight and a Prince
by Trailblazer2500
Summary: Prince Jean of Armorica (aka "Jaune Arc"), has never cared much for a hunter's life, preferring instead to study history within the Royal archives. One terrorist attack later and he finds himself thrown into Beacon for his own safety, conspiracy abounds as he makes allies and enemies, all while being haunted with strange visions of the past.
1. Who we are

**This fic happened after I re-watched a bit of Merlin and then watched a bit of RWBY and then went for a history class about medieval Europe.**

 **And suddenly my imagination started working and I was wondering what would happen if Jaune Arc were a member of royalty, so in this AU, think of Vale as similar to the United Kingdom, where royalty is more a figurehead and does not really hold any actual power.**

* * *

"Ah, son altesse royale Prince Jean of Armorica, and how may I be of assistance to you?" Ozpin smiled from behind his cup of coffee, he watched as Prince Jean of Armorica –or more commonly known as "Jaune Arc"- entered his office.

Jaune nodded, "May I?" He gestured towards the chair off to one side.

"Please do."

"You know none of you have to do that, I'm supposed to be just another student here, in secret no less." Jaune gave a weak smile.

"True, but respect goes where respect is due no? At least for someone of your station…"

"My station? I'm only…" Jaune ticked off his fingers, " _tenth_ in line to the throne sir, I'm not really in the running for it, so I doubt if I have done something to earn your respect."

"Have you now? With only about 2 years' worth of training from the Royal legion's own fightmaster, you're now at least capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with your more…average peers, and in any case, you were able to pass Beacon's own entrance exam and initiation of your own accord no?" Ozpin noted.

"And that's a feat worthy of your respect? Jaune asked with raised eyebrows.

"Considering most hunters-to-be train their entire lives for the sole purpose of entering Beacon and graduating to become true hunters, I'd say yes, you've somehow managed to reach the standard in a fraction of the time, a truly remarkable feat."

Before Jaune could think of a response to that, Ozpin continued, "I now I believe we have gotten completely sidetracked from the original intention, so _Jaune Arc_ what did you need? Does it have anything to do with a certain Mr. Winchester?"

"Er…no…"

* * *

"Night vision, there are many Faunus who are capable of seeing near-perfectly in the dark. It was thanks to this trait –and inexperience- that when General Lagune attempted to perform an ambush on the sleeping Faunus, his army was massacred and he himself was captured." Jaune answered confidently.

" _Excellent answer Mr. Arc!_ I wouldn't have expected anything less from you." Professor Oobleck smiled.

Pyrrha gave Jaune a pleased look and nod as he sat down, Jaune merely shrugged in response, _I need to start thinking of ways to get back at Cardin… he is going past my "mere annoyance" level and entering my "a nuisance" zone._ He thought as he gave a brief glance over his shoulder at the resident bully.

"Pfft, and I thought it was just because animals were easier to train than soldiers." Cardin scoffed.

"Well maybe if General Lagune had paid attention in class, he wouldn't have been remembered as such a failure." Blake rolled her eyes.

 _Whoa shots fired!_ _Couldn't have said it better myself Ms. Belladonna!_ Jaune smirked to himself as he looked at Cardin's reaction.

"He probably should have kept a more open-mind too; maybe he wouldn't have underestimated the Faunus that way." Pyrrha made a quick follow up.

 _Didn't expect_ that _from Pyrrha, way to go you two._ Jaune snickered quietly.

"Why you-!" Cardin started but was quickly interrupted by the professor.

"Mr. Winchester please take your seat, you can see me later after class for additional readings." Professor Oobleck stated before continuing on with the lesson.

Later, once class had finished Jaune exited the classroom with the rest of his team. He stopped right outside the doorway, folded his arms and leaned against the wall for a moment, he looked thoughtful.

"Jaune? Is something wrong?" Pyrrha noted, "Is it Cardin?" She questioned.

"Forget about him." Jaune waved his hand and straightened up, "You three go on ahead first," He nodded to them, "I have to talk to the professor for a moment."

"Ok…" Pyrrha looked hesitant, "You know Jaune if there is anything you want to talk about-" She started but was abruptly cut off.

"I'm fine Pyrrha, _really_." He reached forward and squeezed her hand softly, gently massaging it, the move made her look away at the contact.

"A-alright, if you say so…" He let go of her hand and she let it fall to her side.

"Well I'll see you back at the dorm then." Jaune smiled and gave a small wave as the trio move off, with Nora pestering Ren all the way. Pyrrha was wringing her hands the whole way.

He waited a while more right beside the doorway, listening in on the professor chastising Cardin for his behavior and attitude in class before giving him an essay to be turned in before the start of the next class and dismissing him. He watched as the door banged open and out stomped an angry Cardin right beside him, Cardin turned momentarily and gave Jaune the darkest glare and snarl that he could muster. Jaune responded by lightly shrugging and mustering one of the smuggest smirks Remnant had ever seen in retaliation.

A vein clearly popped in Cardin's forehead, he reached over and gave Jaune a rough shove, Jaune stumbled but caught himself as he watched Cardin walk away.

"See you next Tuesday!" Jaune called out to him before making his way back into the class where Professor Oobleck was just gathering his own things and preparing to leave.

"Profe-I mean _doctor_ Oobleck?" He greeted.

"Your highness? I was not expecting to see you here; I assume it was you who gave Mr. Winchester that rather… _demeaning_ phrase?" Oobleck could not help but let a small smile cross his face.

"Please don't address me as such doctor; here I am just Jaune Arc, a student of Beacon and a hunter-to-be." Jaune smiled.

"It seems like you are adjusting well enough especially given your… _special circumstances_ , is Mr. Winchester giving you trouble?"

"Enough about Cardin please, the lugnut probably has his own reasons and he's not why I'm here now."

"Is that so? And what may this humble teacher of history do for you today young prince?" Oobleck raised an eyebrow.

"I wanted to know if you had any details of the siege of Corlayn castle during the Valean Succession War." Jaune asked.

Oobleck chuckled, "You could probably find out more on your own from the Royal archives than you ever could from me Mr. Arc."

"I _know_ what it is, considered the major turning point in the overall war where the losses suffered by the loyalists were so great that they would never fully recover, and where my namesake ancestor led an army to relieve the city and crushed the besiegers between him and the defenders of the castle." Jaune paused.

"But that's not what I'm looking for…" He continued.

"Then what _are_ you looking for?" Oobleck quizzed.

"I'm looking for more details, but what little there is tends to be shrouded in all sorts of myth and legend, I won't tell you about them but I doubt if my ancestor had a waking premonition of the battle and predicted getting pierced by an arrow in the thigh as well as the descent of spirits of all sorts. It makes my head hurt."

"Well I'm sure you know these battles happened long ago and between all the time and the Grimm as well as general superstition, information tends to be lost, it's up to us historians to piece back together events from what we have now is it not?" Oobleck noted.

"I know profe- _doctor_ , thank you for your time." Jaune made to move off.

"If I may be so bold your highness," Jaune stopped in his tracks and turned, "why the sudden interest?"

"Oh nothing, I've just been…thinking lately."

"About what?"

"Well more like _dreaming_ I guess." Jaune smiled as he walked out, "good day to you doctor."

* * *

"I see…" Ozpin gave no reaction.

Jaune sighed, relieved that they were now back on point, "I've been getting… _strange dreams_."

"Oh?" Ozpin raised a curious eyebrow, "and what do these dreams concern?"

"I see myself in battle, fighting, killing…and it isn't one specific battle, I've seen multiple ones, sometimes it's in an open field, sometimes an ambush in a forest, and quite a lot of times it's a siege on a castle. Sometimes it's not other people though, I see myself fighting Grimm a lot as well." Jaune answered.

"Do you know what the names of these battles are?" Ozpin asked.

"One of them at least, the Siege of Corlayn, the turning point of the Vale Succession war and a decisive victory for the rebels. Where Jean, Duke of Armorica led a force to relieve the castle and killed so many of those loyal to the false king that they would never recover their strength." Jaune answered.

"I see, and do you remember what you feel during these dreams?" Ozpin asked.

"It's a rather frightful experience, feels as though I'm actually there, as in, I swear I can feel the wind rushing on my face from horseback, hear the cries as men charge at each other, see men fall upon each other, smell the blood of a fresh battle and taste salt in my mouth from sweat. It's all, very, _very,_ vivid, almost like…" Jaune paused to catch his breath.

"Like a memory?" Ozpin finished for him.

"Yes, but the funniest thing is…"

"Is…?"

"I stopped having these dreams some time ago, and then they started up all over again when I came to Beacon."

"And when did you start having these… _dreams?_ " Ozpin sipped from his cup of coffee.

"Hmm…I think it was…"

* * *

 _About one and a half years prior,_

"Off you go then." Crown Prince Edward of the House of Vale gave a shooing motion.

"You're not coming uncle?" Jaune asked as he got out of the car.

"I have some business of my own to attend to Jaune, I may be quite late, I know you're tired but don't forget your studies now boy." Edward sternly remarked.

"Yes uncle." Jaune nodded and closed the door.

 _What a day…_ Jaune thought as he ambled up the steps to the door of the mansion, his body was aching and hurting all over from the day's training; fortunately he could already feel his aura beginning to mend his body.

"It's good to see you young prince, how fares your training?" Ash, Crown Prince Edward's snake Faunus butler with greeted him at the door with a bow and a flick of a forked tongue.

"Rough, fightmaster Hans sure knows how to hurt other people." Jaune answered as he rolled his stiff shoulder.

"I'm sure the fightmaster means well young prince, Beacon is assuredly not a school for the faint of heart." Ash gave a small smile as he opened the doors for Jaune.

"Yeah yeah, thank goodness for aura, I don't think I'd have survived otherwise." Jaune nodded.

"Welcome back your highness." A pair of maids bowed and greeted with a smile as Jaune pushed past the door.

"Thank you Felicia, Tsuki." He acknowledged them. Felicia was a blue-haired cat Faunus with pinkish eyes and wore a mostly impassive face, while Tsuki was a dark-haired dog Faunus and always wore a cheery and bright smile.

"Jaune-y!" A short girl with curly brunette hair seemingly flew down the steps.

"Good to see you too Amy." Jaune grinned as he let Princess Amethyst, future duchess of Frostriver and second eldest child of Crown Prince Edward glomped him.

"Are you alright? Did you get hurt bad? How was training? Did you kill any grimm today? What was it like?" Amy peppered him with a thousand and one questions endlessly as she checked all over him.

"Amy, I'm _fine."_ Amy gave Jaune a skeptical look, " _really._ " Jaune added.

"Of course you are." Amy rolled her eyes, "this is how is always goes doesn't it? Because now Prince Jean is going to become a hunter so first of all Prince Jean needs to stand on his own and Prince Jean must be strong, and then after that its Prince Jean needs to mash together a band of sorry misfits into heroes and save the world from the resident evil overlord who wants to make everyone _kneel_ before him." Amy rattled off.

"Your highness! Please take a breath before you pass out!" Tsuki scolded.

"I'm fine Tsuki; it's Jaune we should be worried about." Amy sighed and pushed herself back.

"His highness has his aura to protect him miss; I'd worry about myself more if I were you." Ash chuckled blithely.

"Sure sure, and thanks to his aura he now gets to play hero whenever he wants." Amy sighed, "Call me when dinner is ready." She stated simply and walked off.

"She's…really not taking it well is she?" Jaune scratched his head and looked at the servants.

"The young mistress is merely concerned for you young master, and with good reason, hunters-in-training spend their entire lives from young aiming to become hunters, you are aiming to achieve the same result in a scant two years." Felicia deadpanned.

"It will most certainly be a miracle if you achieve that standard in a mere fraction of a time." She continued, never once dropping her poker face.

"Ouch, you never pull punches Felicia." Jaune gave a weak smile.

"Or a sign of hidden talent!" Tsuki tried to interject but was rapidly cut off by Felicia again.

"I am here to ensure that your needs are taken care of young master and to guide and help you if necessary, this job includes ensuring that you do not overstep yourself when I see it happening." Tsuki explained sharply, "now go and get yourself cleaned up, dinner is ready."

* * *

Jaune sighed.

Ozpin chuckled as he took another sip from his mug, "ah yes, that certainly reminds me of Princess Amethyst's disposition when I went to the Crown Prince's mansion."

"He certainly has a colorful household if nothing else."

"Yeah, Amy can be a bit silly like that." Jaune remarked with a wistful look on his face.

"I think we're getting sidetracked again though," Ozpin replied, "this was the first time you started dreaming?"

"Yeah, it was the night just after I got the modified sheathe for Crocea Mor's sword, when I went to sleep, it was strange, I don't how I can describe looking through someone else's eyes as they perform actions, like it's your own body but you're not in control."

"So then tell me about this dream in particular." Ozpin put down his mug and regarded Jaune with an interested look.

"Well, it's a really strange story…"

* * *

" _I hereby lay down my arms, and hand myself, body, mind and soul to your mercy."_ _The face certainly looked like it had seen better days, cracked lips, sunken eyes, shrunken cheeks, a messy head of long black hair and full beard around his chin. The man was on both knees, he was kneeling before another man who was sitting down dressed in a simple robe and looked quietly contemplative of his adversary. Surrounding them were numerous armed guards, all of whom regarded the kneeling man with disgust._

" _I only hope that you will spare our wives and children the misery that you have visited upon us." The kneeling man said in a resigned voice._

" _Preposterous! To think that the defeated dare make demands of the victor, your lives are ours and ours to will, your wives and children will be slaves in our kingdom and you-" Another man stated as he came forward from behind the seated man, his rant was cut off by the seated man._

" _Enough Octavius." The seated man spoke as he rose and stepped forward so that he stood fully over the kneeling man. They regarded each other for a brief moment before the standing man moved past him to look out with his hands behind his back from the hill where the company was over a battlefield of dead and ruined corpses, the moans of the dying echoed out over the plains._

" _Your surrender is accepted Komminius, your men and you will be given the blade, your wives and children will be free to go, but all the male children will come with us." He moved back and began circling Komminius like a vulture._

" _You have been a grave thorn in my side Komminius, your desperate desire for freedom and belief in resistance to the last has cost both of us so many lives, and in the end you only delayed the inevitable, so I ask you now…" The man squatted down so that he was face to face with Komminius._

" _Was it worth it?"_

 _No words were spoken._

 _The man continued regarding Komminius before he stood up again and nodded to the guards. "Take him away and put him with the rest, let them dig their own graves and fall on our swords, just get rid of them." The guards nodded, they roughly hauled up Komminius by both arms and began dragging him away._

" _I will go to my own death!" Komminius spat as he stood up straight and shrugged off the guards, when they made to seize him again the man raised him hand._

" _Don't waste your effort on him; just make sure he gets there."_

" _There will come a day Julius! You will pay for your sins." Komminius snarled._

" _That day remains to be seen Komminius." Julius answered flatly._

* * *

"Do you think your semblance could finally be awakening?" Ozpin interrupted.

"If it's my semblance, what do you think it could be?" Jaune asked.

"Perhaps it is the ability to see into your ancestors' past? It certainly wouldn't be the most outlandish semblance ever recorded." _There was that one blood semblance years ago at the Vytal tournament._ He thought to himself quietly.

"Well that's interesting but I don't see how it would help me at all."

"Isn't it up to you to find out how you yourself can best utilize it?"

"I guess…"

"But enough about that, what did you see after that?"

"This is the interesting part…"

* * *

" _Was that wise milord?" Octavius asked as Julius entered the tent._

" _Explain." Julius raised an eyebrow._

" _Giving him face like that, if word gets out our enemies might think you weak." Octavius answered._

" _Answer me Octavius, how long have we been doing this." Julius poured himself a drink._

" _Eight winters have since passed."_

" _And what is normally done with the captured?"_

" _They are paraded first, made an example off then dealt with publicly to send a message."_

" _Eight winters Octavius, I am tired of dealing with this nuisance, whatever sends Komminius and his men to their grave faster and with the least of effort on our part will finally allow me some rest." Julius answered as he sat down on a chair with a tired sigh, "if we paraded them about, we might give others inspiration, better to just settle it quickly and quietly."_

" _Understood milord." Octavius nodded, a few moments passed as Julius finished his drink._

" _I will be checking on the men, send the report off to the council as you saw." Julius told him, receiving a nod in acknowledgement he moved off._

 _He walked past the healing tents as men cried out in their last gasps of life, past the living quarters of tents where men rested, and onto the funeral pyres, where friends mourned each other and collected weapons and armor to be sent back to families. He was surprised to come upon some men arguing near a dead body._

" _What is going on here?" He demanded, the men immediately straightened up._

" _We were just about to dig a grave for our friend here milord." One answered._

" _Does digging a grave require as much noise and argument as you are making?" Julius asked with narrowed eyes._

" _No milord we were just discussing what should be done with his weapon." Another spoke up._

" _His weapons? Are they not to be buried with him as befits every warrior?" Julius asked._

" _Well milord, you see…" The first spoke up, "it's to do with his sword."_

" _His sword?"_

" _Yes milord, have a look." He presented the sword to Julius; Julius was surprised as he took in the look of the gleaming blade. It looked no different from all the other swords carried by his men, yet it held an almost unnatural gleam to it._

* * *

"Wait a moment." Ozpin interrupted again.

"Yes?"

"Are you going to tell me Mr. Arc, that the legends of the sword being forged for Julius were false and that he looted it from one of his own soldiers?" Ozpin asked incredulously.

"Don't tell anyone sir but it's a thought that coincides with the opinion of other historians from the Royal Archives, the legend that the sword was forged for Julius is just a legend…" Jaune paused.

"That _he_ most likely made up himself." Those words gave Ozpin pause.

"Plenty of old texts suggest he had quite an ego." Jaune shrugged as he continued.

"Alright then, please excuse my interruption."

"Ok, so…"

* * *

 _To Julius, the blade looked fascinating, he quickly recovered himself however._

" _And what is so special about this sword?" He asked._

" _It never seems to dull and lose its luster, he's carried it since the start of the campaign, and we were wondering if perhaps it would be better to use it ourselves rather than bury it."_

" _Which was an utterly preposterous notion Antonius! It should rightfully be buried alongside him." The second man scolded._

" _Well since it seems none of you can decide what to do with it…" Julius stretched out his hand, "I shall hold onto it." He gave a look that dared the men to argue._

" _O-of course milord, whatever you wish." Antonius handed the sword to him._

" _You are all dismissed," Julius waved them away as he admired the blade._

* * *

"So your ancestor was a looter." Ozpin did not bother hiding the smirk on his face.

"I guess so…"

"Well don't fret Mr. Arc, even the greatest of us have flaws."

"Yeah, but anyway back to the point, what does it all mean?"

"As I said before it could very well be that your semblance is awakening, the ability to see into the past would work quite well for a budding historian like yourself no?"

"See the strange part about that is I had these dreams too _before_ I came to Beacon, then they actually stopped for a while, but now they're coming back…and they're worse now." Jaune voice dropped low.

"Worse how?"

"I didn't have dreams of… _battles_ before coming to Beacon, and sometimes they come to me when I'm awake, like a _vision._ "

"A vision? When was this?"

"Has Ms. Goodwitch told you about the match between me and the lugnut Winchester?"

"She did, and was awfully worried for you, but perhaps you can provide more details?"

"…Ok…"

* * *

 **I once saw a scale of problems according to the British; it starts at "it's nothing" and ends with "Problematic". I can't remember if "nuisance" is higher than "annoyance" or if it's the other way around though so if you're British and you're reading this, I apologize for any mistakes.**

 **One last thing before I finish, this omake came about after I was done replaying a bit of Call of Duty: Black Ops (diss my preferences all you want, I like the story), it just wouldn't leave my head so I wrote it and I'm putting it down here to get it out of the way.**

* * *

 **Call of RWBY: Dust Ops**

"Junior had created Grimm's touch. A chemical based on Grimm blood that corrupts and destroys a body from within in seconds." The interrogator explained.

"Cinder's second-in-command, Roman, tested it at Mount Glenn. On them, on us, on his own…" Ruby scoffed, "He doesn't care." There was a long pause and silence reigned for a moment before Ruby continued.

"Atlas Falls. Raven told me at Atlas Falls."

"What did she tell you?" The interrogator queried.

" _ **Ruby…listen to me…"**_ a voice seemed to echo in her head

"It was a long time ago…far away…"

" _ **Cinder. Roman. Adam. All must die."**_

"She told me what they did. What kind of people they were… _why they all must die_." Ruby spat out the last part.

* * *

 **And that's all folks; I appreciate any and all comments and reviews.**


	2. How we are

**I must admit I was utterly surprised to wake up and see my mailbox flooded with your faves and follows and the 2 "interesting" reviews, I wasn't expecting much as I discovered it wasn't a generally original idea, but my muse was acting up so much that I couldn't help it.**

 **If at all possible, do leave a review on how I can improve fight and battle scenes, it's not my first time but it's not an often occurrence that I write such scenes.**

 **Enough talk, do enjoy.**

* * *

"Jaune Arc and Cardin Winchester!" Glynda Goodwitch announced.

"Dammit." Jaune swore quietly.

"Good luck Jaune." Pyrrha gave him an encouraging smile as he made to get his equipment.

"Thanks." Jaune gave a weak smile

 _I'm going to need it._ He thought.

After gearing up both stepped into the arena, Jaune had decided to go with the longsword this time, a blade sheathe for the sword half of Crocea Mors extending the overall length of the blade by a significant amount.

"Ready for a good pounding Arc?" Cardin gave a smug grin.

Jaune did not grace that with a response and kept quiet as he unlocked the sword from its magnetic clamp and held it in front of him.

 _Inhale, count to ten, exhale, count to ten, inhale, count to ten, exhale_ Jaune breathed deeply and got ready.

"What's the matter Arc? Getting cold feet?" Jaune rolled his eyes.

"No, it's just that your pre-fight banter sucks." He replied.

Cardin growled at him.

When the fight started, both combatants circled each other threateningly.

 _What was it that the fightmaster said about hammer and mace wielders again?_ Jaune tried to remember.

 _Something about them not being able to reverse their weapon swings because their weight is concentrated all away from the point of control._ Jaune thought, he was so absorbed in his thoughts that he almost missed Cardin suddenly charging forward, Jaune slashed his sword to deflect the blow and then reversed it to thrust at Cardin who leapt backwards to avoid it.

It continued this way for some time, testing each other's mettle, ratcheting up the tension, deflecting and counterattacking but not following up.

 _Hard to believe I can fight him with only two years of training, maybe they just didn't have it as intense as I got?_ Jaune wondered.

Then Jaune had an idea.

Cardin swung his mace again, Jaune stepped back just enough to avoid the blow, and at the same time he turned his sword in his hand so that now he was holding it by the blade. Jaune raised his sword up and brought it down; Cardin raised his mace to block it.

Allowing the guard of Jaune's sword to hook onto it.

Jaune gave a hard pull, the mace flew to the side and left Cardin completely open, Jaune allowed himself a small smirk as he reversed his pull and thrust the pommel straight into Cardin's face. There was no way for Cardin to dodge, the pommel hit him full force in the face and sent him stumbling back.

Jaune dashed forward, rolling under another wide sweep and giving a quick slash at the back of Cardin's legs. Cardin spun back wildly, with no time to parry, Jaune had to force a static block as Cardin's mace came swinging in and did something Jaune had not expected at all.

It exploded as it hit his sword.

The explosion threw Jaune back a few meters, and made his ears ring painfully.

 _What the hell was that? His mace can explode?!_ Jaune managed to think, as he tried to collect himself Cardin came back swinging again, still disoriented from the blast Jaune could not bring his sword up fast enough.

"Bollocks." Jaune was just able to force out.

Cardin swung his mace and smashed Jaune right in the head with an explosion, sending the knight flying back and crashing into the ground, by some miracle his sword remained in his hand. Jaune's mind whirled in pain as he struggled to move; he turned his head and could just make out Cardin advancing on him threateningly. At the same time he could dimly hear Pyrrha screaming for him to get up while Professor Goodwitch was shouting at Cardin. His vision flashed and suddenly he found himself not in the arena, but on a strange dirt road in a forested area. He found his body moving on his own as he struggled to his feet slowly using his sword to prop himself up, in front of him a burly man with his face hidden behind a helmet wearing padded armor and a large mace was advancing and was almost on top of him.

Jaune had no idea how, but his arms started moving automatically as if he was a puppet being controlled by someone else, as the mace came down on him, Jaune felt his hands hold the sword in a reverse-grip with one hand holding the blade and one hand on the grip. As the mace came down, Jaune popped the sword up with his foot, using the guard to deflect the swing to one side, he felt his legs shift backward as he did so, and his other hand guided the blade and slashed the man across the chest, a painful cry rang out…

And then Jaune was back in the arena, stumbling back, trying to get his footing, his mind spinning in circles. Across from him Cardin was holding one arm across his chest, glaring daggers right into Jaune.

"You'll pay for that Arc!" He shouted in anger.

Jaune was still trying to recover and understand what had just happened as Cardin was suddenly on him again. Jaune barely raised his sword in time to block another powerful blow that sent him sliding across the floor of the arena; he jammed his sword in to the ground, slowing him to a stop. As he gripped his blade tightly and stood up, he was back on the road watching the other man stumble back from the slash, beaten but not dead.

He suddenly knew exactly how he could finish the battle and kill his opponent. He did not know how he knew; the knowledge of 'how' had simply planted itself inside his head, it was really simple, charge, parry the inevitable wild swing that would come while sidestepping, cut the opponent's arm down to disarm him, bash him with the pommel to force him back and then tackle him down and finish him off with the dagger at your side.

The man gave an angry growl and ran at Jaune, Jaune responded with a piercing cry and a charge that made the man falter for just a second. With the sword following his every thought with precision, Jaune deflected by letting the blow slide off his blade as it came down and then sidestepping and continuing the strike, leading it right onto the arm of his opponent, cutting deeply into the arm though not slicing through it. The man cried out and released his mace; Jaune pulled the blade back and used the momentum to slam the pommel right into the man's face, as he stumbled back Jaune dropped the sword and tackled the man to the ground. Straddling the man's torso with his hand on the man's face, Jaune reached to his side, pulled out his dagger, raised it high and was mere inches from slamming it into the man's face when a sharp voice rang out.

" _That's enough!"_ Glynda Goodwitch's harsh voice brought Jaune back to reality, and he was now back inside the arena, he was surprised when he found his own body would not budge no matter how hard he tried to move, below was Cardin with his eyes squeezed shut, Jaune's dagger was hanging right above his face.

All of a sudden Jaune felt himself get thrown back by an incredible force and he gave a cry of surprise as he landed heavily on his back.

"For knowingly performing a lethal attack, Jaune Arc is disqualified from the match." He heard the professor announce. Not that he really cared, he was too busy trying to find his balance as the room spun round and round, he stumbled and shambled like a zombie to where his sword lay and picked it up, sheathing his dagger first on his right side, he tried to unlock the magnetic clamp fitted to the shielth half of Crocea Mors and lock his blade sheathe on it.

"Mr. Arc." Professor Goodwitch called out.

"Stupid thing, can't be arsed for shit, should've gone with the double-sided sticky tape instead…" Jaune swore quietly as he ignored the approaching professor.

"Mr. Arc!" Glynda called out more forcefully this time.

"WHAT?!" Jaune railed and glared at the professor, it took him a moment to realize what he did as Glynda "terror of Beacon" Goodwitch narrowed her eyes at him.

 _Inhale, count to ten, exhale, count to ten, inhale, count to ten, exhale_ Jaune closed his eyes and rubbed his throbbing forehead for a moment before he put on his best smile and said.

"I mean, you were saying ma'am?" He put on his bravest smile even as he continued massaging his forehead and inwardly noted that he was doomed.

"Mr. Arc, I don't know why you did it, but this is a _training match,_ attempting to kill one of your fellow classmates is generally frowned upon and in a real tournament, you would have not only been disqualified, but automatically barred from participation for any number of years. I expect greater control from you Mr. Arc." Glynda explained.

"Understood ma'am." Jaune nodded.

"That said, that was a brilliant counterattack and comeback you made with your aura level already approaching the threshold, although you stumbled initially, you held fast and won the day, _as to be expected of a student of fightmaster Hans._ " Glynda smirked at the last part; Jaune could only give a nervous smile.

"Keep up the performance; just remember to keep your dagger back when your opponent is already down, wouldn't do to have any training accidents now would we." Glynda raised an eyebrow.

"Of course Professor." Jaune nodded.

"Is that it? That bastard just tried to kill me!" Cardin shouted.

"And Cardin! _Besides_ ignoring my call for you to stand down, your last attack was wild, you need to control yourself more, if you had pushed into Mr. Arc's sidestep you would have unbalanced him and the match would be yours, and you also underestimated Mr. Arc's capacity to fight, leading you into the position you are in now." Glynda explained flatly.

"But he tried to kill me!"

"And his punishment is his disqualification followed by the resultant grade and that is all Mr. Winchester!" Glynda stated firmly, ending any argument.

"Class is dismissed for today." She announced. As the students made their way out, and as team CRDL helped their still shaken leader out, Jaune approached the professor as she moved off.

"Ms. Goodwitch wait!" Jaune called out, the professor turned to regard him, "I'm _really sorry_ for what happened today ma'am." Jaune apologized.

"Well if you're really sorry then perhaps you should explain why you tried to kill one of your own classmates?" Glynda cocked an eyebrow.

Jaune was stumped, how was he supposed to explain that he had received some kind of vision about a man trying to kill him in a similar way to Cardin and that he had retaliated with his body moving almost of its own accord.

"I apologize, I…" Jaune tried to come up with an explanation, "lost control of myself." He stated.

"Excuse me?" Glynda cocked the eyebrow, "lost control?"

"Yes." Jaune bluntly stated, there was nothing else he could go on at the moment, to his surprise Glynda seemingly gave a sigh of resignation.

"Apology accepted your highness; just make sure you don't do it again." Glynda said.

"It's just Jaune here ma'am, I'm no prince here." Jaune meekly noted.

"No…you aren't." Glynda deadpanned.

As he walked out of the arena, he found his red-headed partner leaning against a wall waiting for him, on seeing him she rushed over.

"Jaune! Are you alright?" She asked worriedly.

"Yeah, it just feels like Nora is playing whack-a-grimm on my head." Jaune answered as he rubbed his forehead.

"What happened back there Jaune?" She asked.

"What do you mean what happened?" He eyed her.

"What do I mean?! Jaune you nearly killed another student!" Pyrrha exclaimed, "I know Cardin is a jerk but that's no excuse to _murder_ him like that!"

"So how would you prefer I murder him then?" Jaune smirked and received a hard punch to the shoulder, "that really hurt." He muttered and clutched it.

"Stop joking Jaune this is serious!"

"Ok I'm sorry I lost control ok?" Jaune held up his hands he made to walk away, but Pyrrha roughly grasped his arm as he did.

"That wasn't 'losing control' Jaune, it was like you were a completely different person just then." Pyrrha insisted, Jaune could see her shudder just a little at the memory.

 _A completely different person huh…_ Jaune thought, as he looked away, refusing to meet Pyrrha's eyes.

"Jaune you're my partner, you know you can tell me anything right? That's what partners are for." Pyrrha urged.

"I…wish I had an answer for you…because I don't know either." Jaune finally turned to look at her. Pyrrha looked utterly forlorn as she let her hand drop to her side and hung her head.

"You wanna go eat before they run out of food?" Jaune jerked his thumb in the direction of the dining hall.

* * *

"And that was what happened." Jaune finished.

"Interesting, so…you saw a vision of someone killing another person, and then you used the vision to figure out how to beat Mr. Winchester, am I right?"

"Yes that's more or less it, so apparently my semblance is good for killing the present with the past." Jaune flatly noted.

Ozpin gave a light chuckle, "that aside Mr. Arc how are you getting on with the rest of your team? I hear you are close with team RWBY, although I suppose you would be considering what happened at initiation."

"...We...eat our meals together." Jaune took a moment to answer.

"That's all?"

"Which reminds me, Cardin is a real pain in the ass."

"Oh…?"

"Yeah, _that_ time…"

* * *

Jaune munched on a sandwich slowly and sipped from a cup of tea, he was still holding his head in his hands as he thought back to the match.

 _What the hell was that? Seriously what was that? It was like one of my dreams but it happened when I was awake? A waking dream? A vision?_ Jaune wondered as he absentmindedly stirred the tea with the teaspoon, he was broken out of his thoughts by Nora shouting.

"Dozens of them!" Nora stood up waving her hands excitedly.

"Two." Ren corrected.

"But they were no match... And in the end, Ren and I took them down and made a boatload of Lien selling Ursa skin rugs!" Nora cheered.

"What happened? Sorry I haven't been paying attention." Jaune asked.

"She's been having this recurring dream for a month now." Ren sighed.

" _Oh_ …ok." Jaune nodded in acknowledgement before going back to his tea.

"Does it still hurt? Your head I mean." Pyrrha asked.

"Well I can tell you it's gone from Nora playing whack-a-grimm with Magnum-held to Yang busting another punching bag with Ambrosia Cecelia."

"It's Magnhild!" Nora corrected loudly.

"And it's Ember Celica! And are you telling me Nora hits harder than this?" Yang interrupted, her eyes flaring crimson as she waved her fist threateningly at Jaune.

"I didn't say that…well ok I _did_ say that but…err…" Jaune struggled for an answer.

"Would you like me to hit you so hard you _arc_ through the air?" Yang smirked.

 _Well shit, how do I get out of this one?_ "Tell you what Yang, next time we have combat class you go up against Nora, and then we'll see who hits harder." Jaune quickly stated.

Before Yang could continue, a cry of pain brought their attention to a certain team standing around a brunette with rabbit ears; Cardin had just tugged on one of her ears.

"See I told you it was real." Cardin remarked.

"What a freak." Russel laughed.

"Atrocious. I can't stand people like him." Pyrrha growled.

"Hey where'd Jaune go?" Ruby asked, pointing to the empty seat.

To everyone's surprise, Jaune had somehow disappeared from his seat and was now approaching team CRDL.

"Oh no…" Pyrrha gasped.

"You don't think he's going to…?" Ren interjected.

Before anyone could do anything else though, Jaune was already at the scene, RWBY and NPR held their breath to see what Jaune would do as he tapped Cardin lightly on the arm.

"What do you- Jaune?!" Cardin was startled.

"Indeed, I wanted to apologize for my actions earlier today Mr. Winchester, I was out of the line and I went too far in my match against you, I hope we can put this behind us?" Jaune stretched out a hand, a smile on his face.

Cardin eyed him suspiciously before he skeptically took Jaune's hand.

"What's that dunce doing?" Weiss stared at the scene.

"He seems to be going for a diplomatic approach." Even Blake looked very interested.

"Right sure, now beat it Jaune, I've got other business to take care off." Cardin turned back to the rabbit Faunus before Jaune caught hold of him and turned his attention back.

"Y'know Cardin if there is anything I can do to make it up to you do tell." Jaune continued smiling.

"Yeah sure Jaune-y, I'll get back to you." Cardin growled with irritation in his voice and turned back to the Faunus before Jaune pulled him to the side again.

"I'm serious Cardin, I'm a man of my word, you don't need to hold back." Jaune continued smiling.

"Ok here's something you can do." Cardin turned away with his back to Jaune.

"Of course." Jaune nodded.

"Fuck. Off." Cardin growled and spun around, using the additional momentum to punch Jaune right in the face, sending Jaune crashing onto the bench. His vision flashed one more time, he was now in a bar, seated, and several armed men were standing around him. He was knocked out of his vision by a yell.

"LET'S BREAK HIS LEGS!" Nora yelled as she leapt over the table, swiftly followed by Ren and Pyrrha.

"Agreed, no one messes with my blonde pun-ddy but me!" Yang shouted while standing up waving her fists angrily.

"Yeah!" Ruby stood up as well.

"Oh for crying out loud…" Weiss rubbed her temple, "at least there is one other sane…Blake?" Even the normally quiet and aloof book-reader had gotten up from her seat with a scowl on her face.

"What is going on here?!" The voice of Professor Glynda "Horrorwitch" Goodwitch echoed across the dining hall.

Team NPR were just one table away from CRDL, R(W)BY were just behind them, most of the other students had scattered to make room for them, and Jaune was lying down on top of a bench right in front of CRDL.

"It's all good Professor!" Jaune gave a thumbs-up from where he was lying down, Glynda eyed him suspiciously.

"Is that so Mr. Arc? First you attempt to murder Mr. Winchester during my class, and now you seem intent on wiping out his team with your own team."

"I can explain." Jaune sat up.

"Please do so Mr. Arc." Glynda directed a glare at him.

"I was just apologizing to Cardin here for my aforementioned actions, wasn't I guys?" He looked around to CRDL, (J)NPR and RWBY hoping they would all get the hint.

"Yeah sure." Cardin nodded.

"Of course he was." Yang agreed.

"Ye _p_." Ruby popped the 'p' at the end.

"Nothing wrong here." Pyrrha smiled.

"We're all good." Ren deadpanned.

"We're a-ok!" Nora grinned while making the 'ok' sign with one hand.

Jaune breathed a sigh of relief, "See Professor? Nothing's wrong at all! We're all best buddies aren't we? hehe…" He gave a nervous chuckle at the end, glad that no one was interested in detention.

"Sure thing _buddy._ " Cardin did his best to hide his grimace.

"Course we are!" Yang folded her arms and nodded.

"Definitely!" Ruby nodded along.

"Best friends…forever." Pyrrha's voice cracked at the end.

"Bonded like brothers and sisters." Ren dryly remarked.

"We're all in this together…just not _together-together_!" Nora continued grinning.

* * *

"Good job your highness, not only did you certainly save Mr. Winchester there but you also managed to save us money on a potentially destroyed dining hall and medical fees for team CRDL."

"I had to learn to save my own skin a lot back home…you should see the Crown Prince when he's _really mad._ " Jaune sighed and gave a wistful look out one of the windows.

"I'd rather not Mr. Arc." Ozpin shuddered a little, quite a bit of their funding could potentially dry up if the Crown Prince got upset at Beacon for whatever reason.

 _It was a good plan to ensure that all the major Beacon staff know about Jaune, god forbid something happens to him and the Crown discovers it, it'll be off to the Tower of Vale with our heads in no time flat!_ Ozpin thought to himself quietly, he noticed Jaune was still staring out the window with a somewhat longing look.

"I suppose you must miss them a lot." Ozpin said.

"Yeah I do, all of them, the servants who took care of me, my siblings, my uncle, Amy…even the old fightmaster." Jaune trailed off, "you know I never wanted to be here to start with, it was all dad's idea to provide a 'safe haven' for me in the aftermath of the attack. And somehow he got uncle to agree with it, even though the two almost never agree with each other."

"And of course here you are now."

"Here I am now, I thanked you before already but I wanted to thank you again for essentially giving me refuge here."

"Not a problem your highness, besides it is always interesting to see the potential in others being developed through the most remarkable of situations."

"In this case…?"

"In this case, your talent for leadership and command your highness…and it seems in the _future_ …your skill in combat, being able to tap the skills and memories of your predecessors gives you a wealth of potential."

"You really think so?" Jaune chuckled darkly.

"Quite so your highness, I and the other professors saw it during initiation."

"Oh… _hah_ , yes… _initiation…_ "

* * *

 **And that's that for the second chapter, I hope you enjoyed it.**

 **Kudos to you if you know where the title of this Omake comes from, and if you do know where its from then you should already guess what happens next.**

* * *

 **Ending him Rightly**

"Ready for a good pounding Arc?" Cardin gave a smug grin.

"Yeah yeah, just give me a moment." Jaune leaned his sword and his shoulder and began unscrewing the pommel.

Everyone began whispering quietly to each other, wondering what Jaune was doing while Cardin tapped his foot impatiently.

"Hurry up! We don't have all day Jaune-y!" Cardin growled.

"It's done." Jaune smiled as he finally released the pommel from the sword.

"Alright, take up your positions." Glynda announced, 'In 3…2…1…Begin!" And then Jaune did something absolutely amazing.

He threw the pommel at Cardin.

Cardin merely lifted an eyebrow as he watched the pommel sail through the air, as it neared him though it suddenly released a fine cloud of red dust particles right in his face. He just had time to widen his eyes before the entire cloud promptly detonated right in his face. The explosion was deafening, a shockwave expanded out from the initial explosion and knocked over the students closest to the arena. Cardin was thrown to one end of the arena and hit the floor.

He did not get up.

"Winner…Jaune Arc." Even Glynda looked utterly gobsmacked.

"And that ladies and gentlemen, is how you end a person _rightly_." Jaune Arc explained as he faced the other students.

* * *

 **And that's all folks, I appreciate all reviews, faves and follows.**


	3. What we are

**Kudos to everyone to got the reference in the last omake, now on to business:**

 **To, Gilgamesh, King of heroes: One could make the argument that since Jaune is still alive, Cardin's attack wasn't "technically" lethal.**

 **But enough about that, do enjoy.**

* * *

"Have you had time to adjust to the Academy yet your highness?" Ozpin asked as he and Jaune observed from the main entrance as airships began arriving at the docking bays and discharging the newest intake of students into Beacon Academy.

"Yeah, getting in a week early really helped, this place is huge and I kept getting lost. And I used to think that my uncle's mansion was big compared to my house." Jaune remarked.

"Have you ever been to the Royal Palace your highness?" Ozpin asked.

"A few times to meet my grandparents, that place certainly isn't as big as Beacon, besides there isn't anyone to really talk to there, I much prefer my uncle's residence."

"Ah, your home away from home."

"Yeah, to be honest I was beginning to like it more than my actual home a little."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, home is nice but…it gets lonely sometimes, dad is a hunter usually off solving some problem and mum is more or less his personal bullhead pilot so they're not usually around much. All my older sisters have all left to do pretty much their own thing, my twin is studying medicine in Atlas, leaving me with three younger sisters, one of whom is currently attending Signal and spending all my time taking care of the other two is…well…I suppose they're nice enough but…it just gets painful sometimes." Jaune rattled off and took a breath.

"Thankfully my parents came up with an arrangement where we could stay over at my uncle's place whenever they were on a mission, which could be for months at a time so I got to know everyone pretty well over there." Jaune continued.

Ozpin chuckled at that before taking a sip from his mug, "I've always admired how the Crown Prince keeps such a colorful cast of characters in his own house, half the servants are Faunus yes?"

"Yeah, the maids, the butler and the gardener are Faunus, the cooks and the footmen are human. Sometimes I think he just does it to balance out his own complete dullness though."

"It's not often brought up but the Crown Prince truly shines as an example of equality doesn't he? The fact that Princess Kitsune is a fox Faunus probably helps doesn't it?"

"Yeah…" Jaune trailed off.

"Well enough talk, here they come, go ahead and see your future classmates, I need to tend to some ah… _administrative duties_ , carry on your highness." Ozpin turned and walked away, leaving Jaune to watch the first attendees as they arrived. He moved out to mingle with them, his presence drawing only the barest of glances and acknowledgements as the numerous hunters-in-training mainly chatted amongst themselves. He moved off the main avenue and continued to quietly observe the crowd from the side as they made their way to the entrance.

A commotion attracted his attention, a short distance away; two girls were arguing amongst some fallen cases, the snowflake pattern on the dress of one allowed Jaune to identify her immediately.

 _So she's the famous heiress, but who's she talking to?_ Jaune wondered, the other girl wore a red and black 'combat miniskirt' as they were apparently called and seemed to be trying to calm the heiress down, Jaune approached just close enough to hear the conversation. As he did though, there was a sudden explosion, and a bottle that the heiress was holding flew out of her hands and landed at the feet of another student, this one wore a black bow on her head and…did it just _twitch_ as she picked the bottle up?

Jaune lifted an eyebrow, he knew of the problems that Faunus face outside, not so many were kind enough to give them equal standing like his uncle, and it was not uncommon for some to try hiding their more… _animal_ features.

 _I wonder what she's hiding though, ears? Horns?_ He wondered as the argument continued.

"I'm really, really sorry!" The first girl pleaded.

The heiress grunted, "what are you even doing here? Aren't you a little young to be in Beacon?"

"I…err…" The girl stammered.

"This isn't your ordinary combat school. It's not just sparring and practice, you know! We're here to fight monsters, so... watch where you're going!"

"Hey I said I was sorry princess!" The first girl finally blew up.

"It's heiress actually, Weiss Schnee, heiress of the Schnee Dust Company, one of the largest producers of energy propellant in the world." The second girl spoke up as she walked up to the two.

"Finally! Some recognition!" Weiss gave a smug look.

"The same company infamous for its controversial labor forces and questionable business partners."

 _Oh that's going to sting._ Jaune snickered to himself; the three were so focused on each other they had not realized how close he had gotten.

Weiss was completely stumped by the sudden attack and could only stutter out some angry statements before storming off, closely followed by some helpers. Jaune just stepped out of her way in time as she went by, growling and muttering angry curses. He could not help but admire her looks though: long, off-center ponytail, smooth, porcelain skin, and picture perfect looks marred only by a single scar running through her left eye. At the same time, the second girl had left leaving the first girl to collapse on the ground on her back.

 _I've got to find out what's under that bow!_ Jaune thought to himself as he watched the second girl go, _she's got a really nice sway…nope! Down boy!_ He shook his head and gave a glance at the first girl still collapsed on the ground.

 _Looks like someone needs a hand_. He thought as he approached her, letting his shadow fall on her.

"Having a bad day there?" He stretched out his hand; she eyed him a little suspiciously.

"Kinda." She responded and took his hand.

"Jaune Arc." Jaune kept his hand on hers as he pulled her up. _She's cute_. He thought, silver eyes, face framed by short-black hair ending in red tips, short petite body…

"Thanks, I'm Ruby Rose."

"Pleasure to meet you Ms. Rose, apologies but I couldn't help but overhear your argument." Jaune smiled.

"Aw man you saw that? I can't believe I've already made an enemy on my first day." She sighed.

"I'm sure Ms. Schnee had her reasons for being so uptight and hostile, besides you _did_ blow her up." Jaune gave a short laugh, Ruby merely pouted in response.

 _Darn she's cute._ Jaune turned and looked at Beacon.

"Shall we get going then? We have an initiation to get to and we'll be late." Jaune started walking off, Ruby quickly followed behind.

"Say I didn't see you come out from the airship."

 _She's observant_. Jaune thought, _should I tell her? I guess there's no harm is there?_ "That's right; I was already here for a week before you arrived to get a feel for the place first." He nodded.

"Wait you were here early? How?" Ruby asked with wide eyes.

"Well…uh…" Jaune thought for an answer, "…my uncle…pulled some strings, got the headmaster to let me in a little earlier so that I could see for the place for myself before initiation"

"Huh, I see." Ruby nodded, "well at least you're not as wicked as that white witch-"

* * *

"Let me stop you right there your highness, although I know of Ms. Rose's problems with Ms. Schnee, I don't ever recall the word 'wicked' being tossed around by Ms. Rose." Ozpin interrupted.

"Yeah I may have made that up." Jaune scratched his head, resulting in a sigh from Ozpin.

"Never mind that, please continue."

"Ok, so…"

* * *

"So…I got this." Ruby said after walking for a while, she unfurled a scythe that was at least as big as she was and planted it in the ground.

Jaune maintained his cool and tried not to flinch, "that's certainly impressive, and where did you get it?" He asked.

"Oh, I made this baby myself at Signal Academy, though I may have gone a little overboard with it."

 _That's one way of understating it._ Jaune thought as he asked, "How so? It seems like a fine weapon to me, do you intend on becoming a Grimm Reaper?" He asked dryly, to his surprise Ruby gave a groan.

"Oh don't tell you're another person who thinks they're 'punny', my sister does enough of those things and I can't stand them!" She pouted and then realized something as Jaune smirked, "Pun not intended!"

"Alright Ms. Rose, no more puns." Jaune laughed.

"And could you please just call me Ruby? Ms. Rose makes me feel _old_!"

"Alright Ruby!" Jaune exasperatedly raised his voice, then cocked an eyebrow, "how old are you anyway?"

"Oh…err…well I'm fifteen." Ruby said in a quiet voice.

"Wow, you must be really talented to enter Beacon at such an early age." Jaune complimented.

* * *

"Since when was your highness a professional ass-kisser?" Ozpin lifted an eyebrow.

"Since you were so good at interrupting me."

* * *

"Oh stop it you." Ruby blushed, "so anyway, what do you got?"

"Me? Oh not much really…"

"Oh come on! I showed you mine so now you're supposed to show me yours!" Jaune raised an eyebrow, wondering if Ruby understood her own words.

"If you say so, I have this sword here and this shield, both are sheathes for a separate sword, but I don't use _that_ or the shield much. I also have a backup dagger in case of emergencies." Jaune explained as he tapped each piece of equipment on him.

"Wow, you're a real classical enthusiast; my scythe's also a gun by the way." She grinned.

Jaune shrugged, "I was never much of a shooter, my master told me to just concentrate on learning sword techniques, much easier that way."

"Huh, I guess that makes sense, which reminds me…" Ruby stopped, Jaune stopped as well and looked at her with a curious expression.

"Where are we going?" Ruby asked.

"The hall is just around the corner." Jaune jerked his thumb in the direction.

"There you are Mr. Arc! And just where have you been all this while?" Professor Glynda "Your worst nightmare's worst nightmare" Goodwitch exclaimed loudly, Ruby jumped and hid behind Jaune with a squeak.

"Ruby here was having trouble finding the hall, I offered my assistance and here we are now." Jaune briefly explained.

"I see, well then do hurry up Mr. Arc; Headmaster Ozpin will begin his speech shortly."

"Then I suppose we'd better hurry, follow me Ruby." Jaune gestured, his expression had shifted, he looked more serious now, gone was the light-hearted bantering of barely a few seconds ago, replaced with an almost bored and cold face.

"Uh, Jaune?" Ruby poked him hesitatingly, not entirely liking the sudden change.

"My apologies, we've wasted time, Professor Goodwitch would have our heads if we had actually been late, I swear she's actually a darn witch around here." Jaune remarked, "in any case, we have arrived Ruby." He continued as they entered the hall.

"Hey Ruby, over here I saved a spot for you!" A blonde with a full mane of hair and a really sizable chest-

 _No, stop that, it's unbecoming of you; you're still a prince even if you're just a hunter-in-training now._ Jaune shook his head a little and pressed the heel of his hand into his eye.

"Oh! That's my sister; I gotta go, see you after the ceremony!" Ruby quickly left.

"See you around Ruby." He nodded after her and sighed, he took in the sight of the auditorium and noticed that there _really_ _were_ quite a lot of good-looking-

 _Stop that idiot!_ Jaune facepalmed. _You're not dad! And uncle is going to be so disappointed in me if he knew I was having these thoughts._

 _Better look away now, before I start getting-_ "Ow!" Jaune turned around and immediately bumped into someone; he stumbled back and just caught himself.

"Oh I'm sorry!" The other person stumbled back as well.

"No no it's alright," Jaune pinched the bridge of his nose, "I should've…been watching where…I…was….going…" He forced out slowly as he took in the sight before him.

Long, flowing crimson locks tied in a ponytail that descended down to her waist, deep, vivid green eyes, a curvy body, long legs…

 _And if I didn't know any better, I'd think she exposes her cleavage deliberately, or maybe I don't know any better…_ Jaune tried to collect his thoughts.

* * *

Ozpin nearly fell out of his chair laughing, "So when do you intend on getting on with the story and not endlessly describing your female classmates'…vital statistics." He gave a rather wide smile this time.

"As soon as you quit interrupting me."

* * *

 _Erm…hm…how do I recover from this? Let's go with a simple introduction and see where it goes, hopefully she has a better disposition than the heiress._ Jaune thought.

He cleared his throat and put on his bravest smile, "My name is Jaune Arc, I don't believe we've met." He said while putting his hand forward.

The crimson beauty's smile faltered just a bit as she shook his hand, "I'm Pyrrha Nikos, pleasure to meet you." She winced as she mentioned her name.

 _Wait a minute,_ that _Pyrrha Nikos? The Pyrrha Nikos?!_ _Uh…well…I'm buggered._ "The pleasure is all mine Ms. Nikos." Jaune managed an awkward smile and moved so that he stood beside her and was not blocking her way.

"Please, call me Pyrrha."

"Ok… _Pyrrha_." Jaune breathed a sigh of relief, _at least she seems a lot nicer than the schnee heiress, now how does one initiate a conversation with a celebrity like her?_

"So…how are you finding Vale Pyrrha?" Jaune nervously asked.

"It's really nice, I'm not used to the climate though, it's certainly cooler than Mistral." She stated.

 _I'm sure you'd be a lot warmer if you'd cover up more._ Jaune thought absentmindedly.

"I see, you should've bought a jacket if you were feeling cold, I'm sure there's a store in Vale that sells them." _What should I talk about? Weather? Mistral? Her wins at the Mistral tournament? What was it that uncle said about other celebrities? Something like you can gauge people the fastest by determining how much they like mentioning themselves?_

"Well, I didn't really feel like it…" She trailed off quietly.

"Why? Feeling overly eager to get to Beacon and become a huntress?" Jaune spared a look, to his surprise she was smiling, and it seemed to get a little bigger.

"Something like that…" She then turned to look at him; he fought the heat rising to his cheeks and turned to forward again.

"If you don't mind me asking, why did you decide to come here to Beacon? Surely Mistral offers similar opportunities without having to leave your home." Jaune tried to keep the conversation going.

"Well…"

"Or did winning the Mistral regional tournament become too boring for you? I know things usually become boring for me after the third time." Jaune tried to insert a joke, hoping Pyrrha would react positively.

Once again to his surprise, Pyrrha giggled, "well you could say that, I wanted to have a change of pace, some new scenery, meet some new people, that sort of thing?" She answered.

"Good for you," Jaune gave a sad sigh, "I didn't really have the opportunity to travel much from home, most of this is technically quite new to me." He responded.

"I see, you must be happy to be able to get out."

"Hm…" _She seems nice and trustworthy enough, but I'll hold off on any mention of my circumstances._ "On the one hand, you're right, I'm happy that I can 'get out' as you say, on the other hand I will miss all of the people back home."

"Feeling homesick already? It's only the first day." Pyrrha smirked.

"Actually…" Jaune started but was cutoff when the sound of a microphone squealing echoed through the auditorium, both turned to the stage.

"A very good day to you all, I suppose I should keep this brief, you have come here today from all walks of life, champions, prodigies, fighters, heirs… _aristocrats._ " He gave a lingering look at Jaune on the last word, "your reasons for coming here are equally numerous, a new life, a new challenge, a new _home_ , but all of you plan on dedicating your life and energy to the protection of the people. Many of you are directionless, aimless, wandering about trying to find purpose, so may even have doubts about their being here, you hope to free yourself of this cage with knowledge, your time here will prove that knowledge can only go so far, now you must take the first step.

"Ok…well in answer to your question I was already here a week ago so that I had time to adjust to the surroundings." Jaune smirked in return, Pyrrha looked thoughtful at that.

"Well, that's that then," Jaune said, "I'll see you later Pyrrha, it was a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"The pleasure's all mine, but where are you going?" Pyrrha looked a little dismayed.

"I need to retrieve some personal effects, bye for now, and good luck with initiation if we don't see each other before then." Jaune gave a small wave and turned to move away, wondering if that speech was directed specifically at him.

* * *

"I have no idea what you're talking about your highness." Ozpin said.

"Sure you don't." Jaune folded his arms.

"But getting back to the main point, have you seen any other dreams? Perhaps something on the night before initiation?"

"Well there was…something…I'm not sure what it was though, I can't explain it very well, but it happened after…"

* * *

As Jaune dragged his sleeping bag around, looking for an empty space as he walked by several shirtless guys attempting to impress some of the girls, none of whom looked particularly impressed by the sight.

 _Thank heavens uncle spotted that stupid bunny onesie mum put in my bag and got rid of it before I embarrassed myself._ Now the prince-in-hiding was wearing a simple, silver long sleeved shirt with black outlines and a pair of matching long pants.

 _Come to think of it, I wonder if I'll see that Faunus girl again, I still have to figure out what she's hiding under that bow, I hope it's cat ears…_ He thought to himself as he continued moving around.

 _Darn, maybe I shouldn't have left Pyrrha hanging like that, I wonder if I can find Ruby at least…_ He was answered when a light appeared out of the corner of his eye; he spotted the dark-haired Faunus from before sitting down reading a book via candlelight.

 _Does she need that? Aren't Faunus supposed to have good night vision?_ He wondered, and then he noticed what she was wearing.

 _Wow she's got some really nice legs on her._ He swallowed a little, and then noticed Ruby being dragged over by her buxom sister to the girl, not knowing if it might be a mistake he decided to move closer to listen in on them. From the conversation he learned that the Faunus girl's name was Blake, that the book she was reading was a story about a man with two souls and how they were fighting over the body, and then Ruby and Blake had a conversation about heroes and heroism and why they were in Beacon, it dragged on until Yang and Ruby got into a scuffle, which in turn attracted the attention of a certain heiress.

"What in the world is going on over here?! Don't you realize some of us are trying to sleep?" She scolded and then she and Yang noticed each other.

"Oh, not you again!" Both growled at the same time, at this point Jaune decided to intervene.

"You know you're making almost as much noise as they are?" Jaune pointed out.

"Oh, hey Jaune, didn't see you there," Ruby gave a shy wave, Jaune waved back in acknowledgment.

Weiss huffed, "I'm sorry but can you not see that I'm trying to tell them off, I don't think you even know who you're talking to you _dunce_."

"I personally prefer to be referred to as _Jaune Arc_ , _Ms. Schnee_ one-and-only-heiress of the Schnee Dust Company." Jaune blandly remarked.

Weiss's eyes widened momentarily, before she could respond though Jaune continued talking, "look I know you're upset about the earlier altercation, I was there when you exploded, but what's done is done and we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, so why don't we all just call it a day, turn in for the night, and go to sleep?" Jaune pointedly said, Weiss's eye twitched in response.

Almost as if in response to Jaune's remarks, Blake proceeded to blow her candle out.

" _Thank you_." Jaune breathed a sigh in relief and turned to look at her, she did not respond.

Weiss growled something unintelligible, but stormed off back to wherever it was she slept at.

"See you next Tuesday." Jaune murmured quietly to himself.

"Nice move there Jaune," Yang spoke up in an impressed tone, Jaune gave a low chuckle.

"I thought you two really were going to come to blows." He scratched his head and looked at Ruby, "I take back what I said about Ms. Schnee earlier Ruby."

"What?" Ruby looked perplexed.

"I'm not actually if she has a reason for acting that way." Jaune answered.

"So…" Yang walked up to him slowly with a seductive smile on her face.

 _Good grief she looks good, that long mane of blond hair, that impressive chest area…_ Jaune thought as he remained impassive.

"Ruby told me about you, thanks for helping my sister back there; I'm Yang Xiao Long by the way." Jaune kept a straight face on as she hovered right in front of him, he stuck his hand out.

"Pleasure to meet you Ms. Xiao Long, if you don't mind me asking, why do you have different surnames if you're sisters? Jaune asked.

"Oh we're half-sisters," Yang explained, "by the way it's just Yang, Ms. Xiao Long makes me feel old."

"I see, thank you for your time Yang." Jaune nodded and made to move away when Yang called out again.

"You know Ruby here isn't the most socially capable person around here, she doesn't make friends easily, so as thanks I think you deserve a little reward…" She moved even closer to him, her chest almost touching his.

 _Uh huh,_ Jaune thought as he gave a light chuckle, "my apologies but I have no idea what you are talking about Yang." He backed off a little and folded his arms with a small smirk.

"I thought we were going to sleep?" Blake suddenly spoke up, she was already curled up.

"Right that, I'll see you tomorrow Ruby, Yang." He nodded towards each as Ruby began making her way back to her sleeping area.

"Yeah see you around _Jaune_." Yang gave a sly wink following by a light batting of eyelids, Jaune rolled his eyes.

"Uh, I hope you don't mind, but there's no other space around." Jaune gestured to a space a slight distance away from Blake; she gave a muted growl in response. Jaune decided to try his luck, and settled down quietly about half a dozen feet, when she gave no response in return Jaune breathed a quiet sigh of relief tucked into his sleeping bag and waited for the lights to go out.

Once they did he grinned, now was the perfect time for him to find out whether or not she was a Faunus, and hopefully what kind. Just as he made that thought he heard a light shuffling to the side, he gave a glance at her, and noticed she was taking out that book she had been reading earlier, clearly intending to try to finish it, her eyes darted left and right, trying to make out if anyone was still awake. Having experienced playing hide and seek with several Faunus before, Jaune knew just how still and quiet he'd have to be to not be detected by the incredibly keen Faunus sense.

Once she seemed certain no one else was awake, she gently pried her book open and began reading, Jaune waited for her to get settled first, and then spoke in a low voice that he knew she would pick up; he had often seen Felicia, Tsuki and Ash talking to each other in this way.

"If you keep that up, you won't keep it secret for much longer." He softly growled and then slowly turned over to look at her, a raised eyebrow and a smirk adorning his face.

He wished he had his scroll immediately on hand to capture the moment.

Blake was staring at him like he was some sort of ghost, she put down her book and murmured something, Jaune knew that any Faunus worth his or her own race would have immediately heard it, but Jaune was not a Faunus.

"I'm not Faunus if that's what you're asking; I grew up with Faunus though." He said in the same tone and level. Blake looked even more shocked, her bow twitched pretty fiercely and she sent a rather dark look his way, and then she did something completely unexpected.

She actually charged at him, before Jaune knew it she was on top of him, a pen pointed dangerously at his throat with her other hand grasping his collar roughly. He did not move a muscle except a hard swallow.

"Who are you?" She hissed while glowering at him.

"I'm one-eighth Faunus, great-grandfather married one." Jaune nearly facepalmed at his explanation, but somehow it had just tumbled out, Blake narrowed her eyes in response.

"So?"

"Look I already said, I grew up around Faunus, I even had a Faunus caretaker, I know a lot of Faunus face discrimination, but my family doesn't, so why don't you put away the pen and we can have a nice friendly chat." Jaune gave what he hoped was a bored sigh and kept as straight a face as he could.

Blake lifted an eyebrow but slowly got off and shuffled beside him.

"You know I never won a game of hide and seek with my friends, there was this dog Faunus who could sniff me out no matter where I went, and there was this snake Faunus who I could never find." Jaune tried to break the ice, her expression softened somewhat.

"You must have been close with them." Blake responded.

"Yeah, I'm gonna miss them." There was a bit of an awkward silence between the two.

"I'm sorry." Blake said out of the blue.

"For what?"

"Threatening you like that, I was just scared you'd reveal me, you seem like a nice person though."

"What gave you that idea?"

"You waited for everyone else to go to sleep before you jumped me like that."

"Well flattery will get you nowhere, but on a more serious note…" Jaune paused, "Why are you hiding like that?" Blake twitched at that.

"I'm not hiding."

"What's that on your head then?"

"I don't intend to suffer the discrimination that comes with being who I am."

"You know that it's not exactly the best way to go about it? I was just being observant then, you won't be able to hide for long, especially from any of the professors."

"I…know, I suppose it was wrongful to assume that the bow would've been able to hide who I was from everyone."

"Though I guess it was worth a shot if it was that serious huh?" Jaune noted, "don't worry, I'll keep your secret, I know it must be hard, me and my friends, we…" Jaune stopped for a moment, remembering those times when Felicia and Tsuki had been chased out of stores, those times when Ash had been insulted as they walked down a street, occassional whispering with his own friends back at Armorica, "We've had some bad moments too, cafes that wouldn't serve us, stores that wouldn't sell to us…" Jaune trailed off.

Blake smirked, "I know what that's like."

"Yeah, and people were always whispering about what a human was doing with Faunus, you know I was once asked if I was a Faunophile?" Jaune chuckled.

Blake snickered, "are you?" She asked.

"Well, I certainly don't mind if that's what you're asking." Jaune smiled at her, "I didn't think you could be this talkative honestly, I thought you'd just go back to your book after interrogating me."

"I was curious, that's all." Blake answered.

"Huh, anyway it's time to lights out for me, goodnight, see you tomorrow Blake."

"You too, and it was nice meeting you Jaune." Blake nodded and moved back to her place.

"Likewise."

* * *

"We're getting sidetracked again, though I must admit I personally find it incredible that in the course of one day, you've been able to establish a relationship and connect with virtually every single one of team RWBY and your own future partner." Ozpin mused.

"Yes it was a very striking coincidence that I could relate to most of them and establish some kind of relation so quickly."

"It's almost as though it was all planned beforehand." Ozpin nodded along.

"Yeah, was it fate? Chance? The powers that be?" Jaune sarcastically asked.

"But you don't believe in any of that."

"No, I don't, I've spent so long cooped up in-between the Armorican state house and my uncle's mansion to believe in it."

"Then what do you believe in?"

"…My partner and team…?"

* * *

 **This chapter was a darn pain to write, trying to tune Ozpin's speech to try and include a minor dig at Jaune proved rather taxing, measuring Blake's response to Jaune so that Jaune could come off as actually sympathetic was problematic, and writing the dialogue with Pyrrha was also rather difficult because I was trying to show how Jaune would treat her normally even though he is aware of her identity**

 **I hope I succeeded in the eyes of you readers, oh well at least I got it done eventually, hopefully its not overly cheesy.**

 **And of course before we finish, here's another Omake, feel free to PM me any of your own.**

* * *

 **Solid Blake**

"Hey, has anyone seen Blake?" Yang asked as she ate her food.

"No one's seen her the whole day." Ruby remarked as she reached for another cookie.

"She's probably in the library reading again." Weiss rolled her eyes.

"Nuh-uh ice queen, I checked there first." Yang replied.

Unbeknownst to the rest of team RWBY, there was a cardboard box sitting right next to them on the table, sitting inside the cardboard box with her legs folded reading a book was a certain ninja catgirl.

 _I can't believe it worked; this is the most ridiculous thing ever!_ Blake thought, on the other hand, the box did provide her with an incredible amount of privacy, even more privacy than her corner in the library or the trees in the courtyard and it still allowed her to hear what was going on outside as she read another one of her smutty literature pieces.

So maybe being ridiculous had its benefits.

* * *

 **Metal Dust Solid**

 **Starring:**

 **Solid Blake**

 **Dr. Oobleck**

 **Big Adam**

 **Liquid Lieutenant**

 **Vulcan Adel**

 **Decoy Neapolitan**

 **Psycho Emerald**

 **Sniper Ruby**

 **Pyrrha Silverburgh**

 **Jaune Sasaki**

 **Naomi Glynda**

 **Weiss Ling**

 **Grey Yang**

 **And whoever else you can think of.**

 **I appreciate any and all reviews, faves and follows.**


	4. Why we are

**After V3C12, one thing I look forward to is seeing how all the time travel fic writers are going to deal with this, get to it you guys, the whole purpose of your fic is to more or less fix things isn't it? Especially with how time-travel fics were picking up in popularity for a short while.**

 **On the subject of "is this going to be a harem fic?" The answer is no, while they are quite entertaining to read, I'm not predisposed towards writing them, pairings are still undecided as of now.**

 **On the other hand, I do enjoy platonic teasing, I suppose you can expect flirty banter between Jaune and Yang, moments in the library with Blake, tea with Weiss...something involving Ruby...usual training thing with Pyrrha etc.**

* * *

 _Jean, Duke of Armorica peered around him even as he sat up straight and high on his horse, at present he moved at the head of a column of loyalist soldiers through a forested area, marching to Corlayn castle to relieve a siege that had lasted for nearly three months. Already its defenders were beginning to run low on food and other essentials, and the well could only provide water for so long, therefore when a messenger had sneaked out of the city and arrived in the house of the Duke of Armorica with the ill news, Jean had mustered all the men, weapons and supplies that he could and marched with all haste to help._

 _The problem was that the rebels most likely knew they were coming, and were no doubt waiting in ambush somewhere down the road, therefore all the men were on high alert and hands were gripped tightly around swords and spears, Jean himself was watching every tree and shadow, waiting in anticipation for the ambush. Little did he know that he was being watched more closely than he thought, high in the trees above him, a tall and lithe figure in dark green cloak hugged a tree branch tightly as she observed the trespassers in her forest, she decided that she ought to at least give them an appropriate welcome._

 _As the column continued moving on, Jean spied a clearing in the distance._

 _With the sun starting to go down, he made a decision, "we'll make camp over there, set up a watch patrol, I don't want anything sneaking up on us!" He ordered, right then something whistled right by his head, his horse reared back with a loud yelp._

" _Ambush! Get ready!" He shouted instinctively and jumped off his horse and raised his sword, preparing for any kind of attack as the men formed defensive positions with shields raised high, all anticipating an attack that never came._

 _Jean's head and eyes flicked from side to side, nervously trying to hear out and see for anything suspicious, but nothing happened. It was then that he noticed what looked like a parchment rolled up along the length of the arrow that had flown past his head and embedded itself into a tree next to him. Cautiously, he walked up to the arrow, took it down and unfolded the parchment._

 _Greetings Jean, Duke of Armorica, herald of his majesty, you may be wondering who it was that just shot an arrow at you, but rest assured that I am not with the pretender king, neither do I support the child-king that you claim as the rightful heir to the throne. I merely wish to have a little talk with you in private if possible to discuss matters that may prove beneficial to us both, now if I have piqued your curiosity and you now wish to know more, you will come out of camp on your own to a quietly secluded spot of your own choosing, you may bring whatever you choose save for one of your own men._

 _P.S. If you doubt my trustworthiness, kindly be reminded that I could have killed you with this very arrow, I just wanted to get your attention._

 _P.P.S don't even try to bring one of your Faunus scouts, trust me I'll know._

 _Jean's eyebrow twitched at the message._

" _What does it say milord?" One soldier asked._

" _A mere taunt, nothing more." Jean rolled the message and put it in his pouch, "we should keep moving and set up camp, the sun will be down soon." He ordered._

" _Yes milord."_

 _Later that night, after the sun had dropped and many of the men had gone to sleep with only the nightwatch prowling around, Jean took his sword with him and a lighted torch and slipped out of camp. He knew that it could be a trap, on the other hand he was curious to see what this could be and to at least meet his would-be killer, and if it did turn out to be a trap, well he planned to stay well in range of shouting distance of the camp, the shooter had stated it to be a secluded spot of his own choosing anyway._

" _I am here now, what do you want?" He called out as he the tossed torch onto some dirt, allowing it to light up some of his surroundings. He kept his hand firmly on his sword, ready to draw it out at a moment's notice._

" _My my, aren't you daring to come out here all alone." A smooth voice seemed to echo out from all around him, Jean drew his sword._

" _Your message specified that I come alone." Jean stated firmly._

" _To be so trusting of a mere message, I truly have to marvel at the depths of your naivety." The voice continued._

" _Enough of your musings, you came to talk? So talk."_

" _Uh uh uhhh, put the sword away first sir knight-without-his-armor." Jean did not move a muscle._

" _Who are you?" He demanded._

" _Put the sword away first and we can talk like civilized people." Jean could imagine the voice smugly smiling at him._

" _So that you can gut me where I stand? No thanks, I'll die armed."_

" _My, you men sure love your swords." The voice giggled._

" _What is that supposed to mean?!"_

" _Oh nothing, just that it seems every man I ever meet seems so desperate to just kill and be killed for such trivial reasons."_

" _Trivial? I dare you to breathe such a word again! We of Armorica have always been loyal first and foremost to the rightful king, his majesty is currently in hiding while some pretender to the crown holds power, and I will not let this stand!"_

" _And so you march blindly to your death for a child-king who knows nothing, would the realm truly be better of him on the throne?"_

" _Don't speak of such matters lightly, his majesty may only be a mere child, but a pretender on the throne is completely unacceptable! What does it say about all of us if we let such an atrocity occur and do nothing about it?"_

" _It would suggest that you are a pragmatic and reasonable man who can make tough decisions."_

" _Pragmatic? Reasonable?" Jaune spat, "the man who currently claims the crown is only the next in a long line of men to claim power under the guise of some righteous rule. He would sooner drive us all to an early grave."_

" _You don't know that."_

" _No more than you know what his majesty is capable off, but I do know where I stand at least, I've seen the fire in his majesty's eyes, I know that even if he may be a naïve and young whelp, I can feel that he may grow to become a good king in his own right, can you say so much about the pretender?"_

 _There was silence._

" _I take your silence as agreement, enough talk! Either show yourself and fight if you so choose, or begone from here, I have no time to deal with chattering forest spirits." Jean spat one last time and made to leave, all of a sudden out of the corner of his eye he spotted a shadow fall to the ground from above, he immediately spun and raised his sword, in the flickering light of the torch he could dimly make out a womanly figure in a dark green cloak. The figure carried a longbow with a quiver of arrows on her back, when she stood up straight from her crouching position; Jean realized she stood at eye level with him._

" _I am no mere chattering spirit Jean of Armorica; I am Robina, keeper and guardian of the olivewood." Robina stood tall and strong as she walked determinedly towards the knight._

" _An olivewood ranger then, I have heard tales of you rangers, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor like a band of thieves." Jean snorted; he relaxed a little but kept his guard up._

" _It is not quite what they say; we are merely a merry band of woodmen living our own lives as we wish far from the rules of your vaunted cities." Robina stood in front of Jean and folded her arms across her chest, in the darkness with only a torch for lighting Jean could barely make out any prominent facial features in the hood._

" _Well I have no time to deal with merry men and women, speak your piece quickly; I have to return to my camp." Jean felt safe enough to sheathe his sword._

" _Straightforward and to the point, I like you already sir knight, well then, what shall we begin with?" Robina looked thoughtful._

" _Do you truly believe in the child-king?" She asked._

" _I believe the throne is rightfully his."_

" _But do you truly believe that he can be a just and true ruler?" Robina persisted._

" _I don't know that he will be a just ruler and you don't know that he will be a cruel ruler, but on my honor as the Duke of Armorica I cannot –and will not- let the pretender stay there any longer." Jean stated firmly._

" _Oh fine, you win, I never held much love for either the child-king or the pretender, none of those who have ever sat on the throne have ever wielded their power for my people." Robina scoffed and looked away, her voice was measured, but a hint of sadness crept through, Jean was unsure of how to respond._

" _I beg your pardon milady, but I fail to see why a ruler should use his power for a band of merry thieves." Jean scoffed in return._

" _Not that! What I meant was…ugh-!" Robina growled, and then lifted her hood and pushed it back, revealing a slender, heart-shaped face, long shoulder length crimson locks…and a set of fox ears on her head?_

" _I…see…" Jean trailed off, he knew of the injustices suffered by the Faunus, even in his native Armorica, as much as he tried to clamp down on the inequality they suffered, it was inevitable that discrimination would always take hold somehow._

" _And yet…I see hope in the midst of endless darkness." She suddenly jabbed her finger in Jean's face and continued, "I've seen you put many Faunus in your employ, you even use them to your advantage as nightwatchmen, scouts and prowlers, and you treat them with respect the same way you treat your human companions, and now I ask of you…why?"_

" _You ask me why, and I answer with: why not? There is no reason as to why I should treat them any differently from the rest of my men, indeed as you said their nightvision makes them good guards, their keens senses see and hear things before any human can, if anything I should accord them greater respect." Jean took a breath before continuing, "in any case, I need every man who can hold a weapon in this fight, if the pretender wishes to discard such an advantage then I shall be happy to make it my own."_

" _So you would make tools of us, and discard us when we have no more use?" Robina asked sharply._

" _Certainly not, they deserve the same reward and gratitude for their service and loyalty as every human does,_ I _will ensure it and I am a man of my word." Jean responded confidently._

" _And would the child-king –if he makes it- ensure it?"_

" _I…" Jean paused, "I can try to persuade his majesty when this is over if that is what you wish." Robina shook her head._

" _Not good enough," she sighed, "farewell then sir knight, I will ensure that you are not harassed as you make your way through my land." She began walking away._

"You _could ensure it," Jean said as an idea popped into his head, Robina stopped and turned._

" _How?"_

" _If it was known that a Faunus had a hand in returning the rightful king to the throne, the people would be more willing to accept your kind."_

" _A mere fantasy, a single war will not remove ages of pain and hatred."_

" _No it will not, but it can start from there, everything must have a start no matter how rocky it is, from there it can grow into something bigger, but first someone must make the first step."_

"… _You don't know what you're talking about…" Before Jean could respond, Robina was already walking away, "there is a rebel encampment at the edge of the forest, they have been there three days and are lying in wait for you, goodnight and good luck sir knight, you will need it." And then she was gone._

* * *

"This would be Robina of the olivewood? The near mythical Faunus hero of the Vale succession war? I thought most regarded her as a legend."

"It's actually her statue standing in your academy headmaster, the council felt any mention of her or her band would drive the Faunus into open rebellion and quashed nearly all records of her and her participation."

"This is getting more and more interesting your highness, I truly wonder how much else the royal family is hiding."

"Well the royal archives aren't open for the public to view," Jaune shrugged, "the royal family guards its knowledge very well."

"But anyway, I haven't yet had a chance to ask you what you thought of our initiation this year."

Jaune rolled his eyes.

* * *

Jaune's scroll buzzed at exactly 7a.m. on the dot, he turned it off, got up, stretched his arms and gave a look around. There was some minor shuffling and movement here and there, but overall the ballroom was still mostly asleep. He turned and noticed that Blake was still asleep and wondered if he should wake her up.

 _Nah, let her enjoy her sleep, meanwhile, I'm dying for a cup of Valean Breakfast tea._ Jaune thought as he scratched the back of his head. He grabbed a bag filled with some toiletries and made his way to the bathroom, at this early time there were few others awake, and so Jaune proceeded to patiently take his time with brushing his teeth and cleaning up in the restroom, ensuring that his normally messy hair was combed neatly with a side parting.

 _A prince should always at least look presentable, or at least that's the rule uncle holds to._ Jaune thought as he made his way to the dining hall, as he exited the restroom though, he passed by a boy with long dark hair being followed by a girl with orange hair who was loudly and endlessly pestering the boy with all sorts of questions and sentences. The boy for his part, seemed to take all of it in stride

"I can't believe we've been at Beacon for a full twenty-four hours! Not that I thought we'd get kicked out or anything, I mean, you're the perfect student…" Jaune picked up as he walked by.

 _She's chatty alright and has nice…nope! Not this early in the morning!_ Jaune thought as he spared her a glance.

In the dining hall, he found himself looking at several piles of various kinds of cereal, fruit, bread, spreads biscuits and all sorts of other breakfast paraphernalia, among them he noticed one box in particular that stood out with a certain champion's face on it.

 _Oh it's that disgusting cereal that Pyrrha apparently endorses, which reminds me I have to ask her about it when I see her again._ Jaune rolled his eyes and put the box back.

The one he reached for was a bag of tea leaves, a cup and headed for the water cooler, switching the machine to hot water he allowed it a moment to cool in the cup before taking a sip

And promptly spat it out back into the cup.

"What the hell is this supposed to be?" Jaune suddenly stopped and looked around, hoping no one had noticed his outburst. Thankful that the few other students around did not seemed to have cared, he promptly poured out the "tea" at the nearest sink, although even daring to describe it as tea would have been an insult to all kinds of tea as it was more like mildly bitter hot water with food coloring added.

"Ugh, what now?" Jaune sighed and took stock of his options, at the moment only the mostly dry food was out, at this time the dining hall was only just starting to get operational so there were no sausages or scrambled eggs.

Sighing, Jaune sat down at a bench and took out his scroll, he flipped through the news application, skimming to find something worth his interest.

 _Rumor true! Pyrrha Nikos attends Beacon Academy in Vale!_ Nope

 _New mining vein found! SDC claims._ Nope

 _Latest spate of dust theft drives prices up again._ Nope

 _Special report: When will the dust run out?_ Nope

 _Vacuon dust explosion caused by the Gunner of the Western Wasteland?_ Nope

 _On the House of Vale: two years on, where are they now?_ Har har

Jaune sighed as he continued flipping absentmindedly, nope nope nope nope nope, "nothing to see here" his scroll seemed to say.

 _What now? It's way too early to eat, and there is no way to go back to sleep, so do I just…wait for something?_ Jaune thought.

And so he waited…and waited…and then waited some more…and he continued waiting…and then he felt himself slip into some kind of "waiting" daze.

And then he was rudely woken up.

"Pancakes! They have pancakes, look at them Ren!" Jaune jumped out of his daze and looked around, he checked his scroll, 8.01 a.m. and the dining hall was beginning to fill up, he looked for the voice and found himself looking at the same duo that he had passed by at the restroom, once again the talkative carrot-top girl was running her mouth off at a mile a minute as she explained something that somehow involved pancakes and sloths. Jaune's mind wrestled with trying to make the connection for a moment before it gave up and he slumped in his seat.

"Hey hey Ren! There's someone else here!" Suddenly the carrot-top plopped herself down right in front of him, a large stack of pancakes in front of her.

Jaune blinked "Uh…hi?" He tried.

"Hi there! My name's Nora Valkyrie and this is my bestest childhood friend Lie Ren, we've been together for years I mean like what are the odds of that happening but I don't mean together like together-together because I know Renny is handsome and all but I definitely don't like him that way no sirree!" Nora rattled off, and then began inhaling her pancakes.

"…what…?" Jaune's mind once again tried to process the information at the speed it was presented to him, it sighed and sent a message to his heart, telling it that it did not feel like dealing with this shit and told the heart to just wing it before giving up the ghost.

"My apologies for Nora here, she's…quite hyperactive as you can see."

"Together for years huh?" Jaune gave a knowing smile.

"Since childhood." Ren affirmed, and then Jaune noticed an oddly pleasant smell, and he began sniffing the air for a moment, settling on a teapot Ren had set down.

"Is that chrysanthemum tea?" Jaune asked his eyes wide.

"Yes, it's my personal stash." Ren looked quite surprised and slightly pleased.

"Would you mind awfully?" Jaune stuck out his cup.

"Not a problem." Ren nodded and poured out the tea neatly.

"Thank you, my name is Jaune Arc by the way." Jaune held the cup below his chin as he inhaled the sweet scent slowly

"Well as you heard, I am Lie Ren, and this is Nora Valkyrie," Ren gestured at the grinning girl besides him.

"Pleased to meet you."

"eesh ht eet ou!" Nora smiled as she attempted to talk with her mouth full of pancakes.

"No offence, but is she always like this?" Jaune asked.

"More or less, I've learned to deal with it." Ren nodded.

"Heh, I know what that's like; I have a cousin back home who acts much the same way…"

"I see." Ren answered as they settled into a comfortable silence except for Nora loudly wolfing down her pancakes as fast as she could, when she was finished she banged her fist on the table, startling Jaune again and making him spill some tea on his jeans.

"Another!" She yelled and flung the plate above her head, Jaune stared wide-eyed as the plate sailed through the air, and flinched when it narrowly missed a brown haired male as it came down crashing.

"Hey watch it!" He cried out.

"Oops! Sorry back there!" She called out and giggled as she made her way to get more pancakes.

"I take that back, my cousin wasn't nearly _that_ hyper." Jaune gave a small smile.

"I should probably go and get my own food anyway." He said as he got up from his seat.

"We'll save you a space." Ren nodded.

Later, after he had eaten and bidden goodbye to the odd duo, he made his way to the locker room to prepare for initiation.

 _Thank goodness uncle persuaded Ozpin to let me know what initiation was before it started so I could prepare myself accordingly. So let me see if I remember, four teams of two pairs each consisting of whoever makes eye contact with another person first. Now who would I want to be my partner? Ruby would be nice; I'd definitely like to see how she managed to get into Beacon early, her older sister looks like a pretty tough cookie too, Blake seems interestingly mysterious enough, and damn if it wouldn't be nice to have Pyrrha around. Hm…darn how_ are _there so many attractive girls in this place?!_ Jaune thought to himself as he started putting on his armor.

 _The only person I don't think I'd want to be partners with would be…_ His thoughts were interrupted when he heard the voice of a certain heiress.

"Pyrrha, have you given any thought to whose team you'd like to be on? I'm sure everyone must be eager to unite with such a strong, well-known individual such as yourself!" Weiss Schnee said excitedly to a somewhat uncomfortable looking Pyrrha.

 _Speak of the devil and she shall appear._ Jaune rolled his eyes as he put both of his sheathes on his belt.

"Well I sort of had someone in mind I guess? But I suppose I'll just let the chips fall where they may." Pyrrha answered.

"Well... I was thinking maybe we could be on a team together."

 _Oh har har,_ Jaune thought as he noticed the rather manic look on her face, he checked to make sure his backup dagger and water canteen was secured properly.

"That sounds grand."

"Great!"

 _Good lord she looks positively evil,_ Jaune shuddered a little as the smile on Weiss face grew wider. He made the decision to approach them.

"Good morning Ms. Schnee, Pyrrha." He acknowledged the both of them.

"What on earth- oh it's you Jaune, what do you want?" Weiss huffed and folded her arms.

"I'm just here to say good morning Ms. Schnee, no need to be so hostile." Jaune held both his hands up.

"Good morning to you to Jaune." Pyrrha smiled.

"Can't you see I'm busy here?" Weiss's eye twitched noticeably.

"OK." Jaune finally gave up, "I can tell when I'm not wanted around, so I guess I'll see the both of you at initiation." Jaune nodded and made to move away.

"Weiss and I were just discussing our teams." Pyrrha quickly interjected.

"Oh I see, any plans in particular?" Jaune advanced on Pyrrha with a smirk, and was immediately pushed back by Weiss coming between them.

"Hold on a minute! Do you know who this is Jaune?" Weiss demanded.

 _Hm, what should I say? Top of her class? Four time winner? Mascot of that disgusting cereal?_ Jaune thought for a moment before he spoke.

Of course what tumbled out was none of those things.

"Pyrrha Nikos, future classmate?" Jaune dryly said before he could stop himself.

 _Ah it seems my mouth has run off again._ Jaune mentally facepalmed, but kept as straight a face as he could under Weiss's withering glare. To his surprise, Pyrrha was shaking and clearly trying her best not to giggle.

 _Well at least I have one ally here…_

"This is Pyrrha!"

"Yes I can see that, it's definitely Pyrrha as far as I can tell, unless Pyrrha actually has an identical twin that so happens to also be called Pyrrha and that identical twin is attending Beacon as Pyrrha." Jaune let loose.

 _Did I just come up with that?_ He thought, and now Pyrrha was covering her mouth with the back of her hand, trying not to spontaneously burst out into laughter. Meanwhile, Weiss looked like she was actually about to explode.

"She was the top of her class at Sanctum!"

"I know."

"She's the four-time winner of the Mistral regional tournament!"

"Yes and…?"

"She's on the front of every Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes box!"

"Which reminds me Pyrrha," Jaune turned to Pyrrha, who immediately ceased trying not to laugh and paid attention to him.

"Yes Jaune?"

"How desperate were you when you accepted that sponsorship? Because that thing is _disgusting_ , it's just pure sugar and some artificial flavoring, with something hard in the middle to hold all the sickening sweetness together." Jaune asked.

Pyrrha managed to smile at that, "Well yeah it's not very good for you, but they told me they're working on a new formula, besides it was pretty cool doing it."

"Hang on, if you already know who Pyrrha Nikos is, what makes you think you're in a position to be her partner." Weiss interrupted.

 _Oh god, does she have to…_ "Well you know what Ms. Schnee you're probably right and I'm not in a position to be her partner or leader or on her team or whatever." Jaune threw his hands up in defeat.

"I'll see you on the far side Pyrrha." Jaune stuck his hand out; Pyrrha shook his hand firmly with a smile.

"I'll see you to Jaune."

"And good day to you Ms. Schnee." Jaune turned and walked away without bothering to see what the heiress's response was.

"Having some trouble there ladykiller?" A voice from behind made him jump slightly, he turned and smiled.

"I pity the poor man who gets to be her partner, how're you this morning Yang?"

"Hm, well I guess I could be better." Yang stood back, folded her arms and looked away.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, _you_ could've made it better." Now she directed a rather seductive stare at him.

"Oh."

"Yaaaaaaanngg." Ruby droned resignedly.

"What? Ladykiller here thinks so too right?"

"Maybe some other time Yang."

"And when will that be Jaune? I'm just shivering at the thought of _Jaune-ing_ with you someday." Ruby groaned loudly.

Jaune gave a sarcastic laugh at that, "I have no idea what you're talking about Yang." He feigned innocence.

Before the blonde bombshell could respond to that, Professor Goodwitch's voice came over the loudspeakers, "Would all first-year students please report to Beacon Cliff for initiation? Again, all first-year students report to Beacon Cliff immediately."

"That's our cue." Jaune turned and walked off, Yang and Ruby quickly following behind.

"Oh I like a man who can take charge." Yang grinned.

Sometime later the trio found themselves standing on a cliff overlooking Emerald forest, Ozpin explained how the teams were formed, how partners were found and how they were going to head north to find a set of relics and then return those relics when they had been found. Along the way something something danger something something Grimm. Jaune did not really bother to pay attention; he'd already been briefed the day before yesterday and had already prepared himself accordingly.

As they got onto the launching pads, Jaune looked to his left and then to his right, noticing that everyone was adopting some kind of pose and position while he was just standing straight.

 _Well great, I guess this is how I die?_ Jaune thought as he watched the first few students get launched off.

* * *

"Don't fret so much your highness, you did give us a nice recruitment tool." Ozpin chuckled as he showed Jaune the picture Teams RWBY and JNPR had taken during initiation.

"Oh, yes… _that_ …"

"A remarkable piece of teamwork your highness, especially considering you only had a day at most to know each other." Ozpin handed Jaune the photo to look it over, Jaune stood in the center holding the scroll up, on both sides stood Pyrrha and Ruby, behind Jaune Nora was jumping up using Ren as a support, Weiss stood beside Ruby while Yang and Blake stood behind them. Behind them a rather large Grimm could be seen disintegrating into small black wisps.

"That thing was…well truthfully I was hoping one of you would come in to save the day, I really thought I was a goner back there."

"But in the end you pulled everyone together and defeated an S-rank Grimm with no aid beyond each other, I assure you that you have that much to proud off in the very least."

* * *

 **Phew, that's another one done, the next one is the actual initiation.**

 **I had a different omake planned for this chapter, but in light of V3C12 I came up with something else, with the sheer number of OP!competent!Smart! Jaune fics I hope you enjoy reading it like I enjoyed writing it.**

* * *

 **Hero of Vale**

"I won't let you die Pyrrha!" Jaune blocked the arrow from hitting Pyrrha's heel.

"J-Jaune? How did you...?" Pyrrha gasped.

"He had help." Weiss smirked as she appeared beside him.

"Yeah, we're not letting you die here Pyrrha!" Ruby cheered as she appeared on his other side.

"What're you doing?! You can't beat her!" Pyrrha protested as she stood up shakily.

"Oh good, now that you're all here, I can get rid of all the problems in one shot." Cinder began hovering and powering up a massive fireball, making everyone's eyes go wide.

"No more..." Jaune hissed, and then he charged, "You're not taking anything else today!" He screamed.

"You dunce! What're you doing?"

"Jaune stop!"

"JAUNE!"

Cinder released the full power of the Fall maiden right onto Jaune who threw his shield up right before he was engulfed by a blinding white light...

Which suddenly changed course and exploded in Cinder's face.

"What?!" Cinder screamed angrily as she stumbled back, everyone else gaped at Jaune as a transparent bubble with hexagonal patterns surrounded him as he kept his shield up.

A whole round of asskicking later where Cinder is basically told to fuck the hell off with the Glenn dragon in tow, and wherein all the Grimm are annihilated from Vale via Jaune organizing the defense and giving out orders like the leader he is and the day is saved, Yang's arm is regenerated and Blake's wound is healed among other things because if we're going to throw the entire script out and make our own damn happy ending then why the fuck not?

Sometime later, after Cinder had been sent packing and Kevin had been annihilated, Team RWBY and JNPR were reunited and Pyrrha had dragged Jaune off into a dark corner and inhaled all the air out of his lungs in thanks for saving her, everyone celebrated with a big party where Jaune was forevermore known as the Hero of Vale.

After the celebration, Pyrrha takes Jaune to the last functioning hotel in Vale where they confronted each other physically, did the horizontal tango, dived into a cave of magical wonders, reached to the heavens, proved god exist, or whatever the hell making hot, wet, sweet passionate love is called these days.

And everyone lived happily ever after.

THE END.

* * *

 **Har Har Har**

 **I'm guessing this is what damn near everyone would've preferred to happen.**

 **It was originally going to be called Arc-angel and would've featured Jaune growing wings of light and remembering that he fell from heaven as punishment - a full lifetime on Remnant- for something he did and that he was actually the archangel of valor or something.**

 **Unfortunately halfway through writing it got a little too cheesy for me and so I changed it to something else instead.**


	5. When we are

**Thank you everyone for all your compliments and comments, unfortunately for those of you who were hoping for a harem fic or for a particular pairing I'm still mostly undecided about all those, I'm working on getting the term "Prince Charming" into a joke later on, probably by Yang.**

 **This chapter in particular includes two fairly major fight scenes, hopefully they're good enough.**

 **Right, so here we go.**

* * *

Jaune grunted as he slammed his sword –without the elongated blade sheathe- into the nearest tree, his arm snapped back, tearing a long gash right through it and spiraling all the way down to the forest floor while he bashed through branches and leaves with the shield. He pulled his sword free and let himself fall the remaining few feet to the ground.

He rolled his shoulder a few times, feeling the aura already beginning to heal the dull numbing ache, and then he heard what sounded like a low growling noise, a hunting trip with his father taken just before entering Beacon allowed him to immediately discern the noise.

He looked around and saw the faint red gleam of a beowolf's eyes moving around him, slowly surrounding him.

 _That's what makes them so dangerous even if they are individually weak, they're intelligent and they work in groups._ His father had said.

 _Normally as a team, it's easy to counter the beowolves by watching each other's backs, but going it alone makes it difficult as you never know how many you could be facing at once. There are two methods to deal with them, either you back yourself into a corner and fight them one at a time, or you run and pick them off as they chase you, either method is fine, just don't ever let yourself get surrounded because you're in for a world of hurt if you do._

"Thanks for the actual advice dad, certainly better than the 'Girl's like confidence' one." Jaune grit his teeth, he went with his shield and sword for the fight, backing up against the tree to cover his rear and using his shield to cover one side of his body. He watched as the eyes moved around him counting at least five separate pairs of eyes.

The first two charged at him from either side, he let one crash into his shield on one side, pushed it and himself away and let the other crash into the tree, he hacked one to death before decapitating the second.

A loud snarl quickly sent him rolling back against the tree, barely dodging a third as it leapt forward, as it recovered Jaune stabbed it through the head and backed up again just in time for the fourth to come charging straight at him.

He caught it on his shield, threw it down and a swift slash finished it off.

 _This is way more exciting than the entrance exam._ Jaune thought, recalling how he had faced a similar pack of beowolves, except that had been in an arena.

And then the final beowolf made its appearance, and Jaune's jaw promptly hit the floor.

The thing towered over him; it must have been at least twice his height, with way more spiky bone-like protrusions and a much more fearsome face.

"Ok that's a little _too_ exciting." Jaune swallowed, he kept his shield and brought out his blade-sheathe instead, figuring that the shield wouldn't give him much protection. The Grimm advanced slowly, it and Jaune circled each other slowly, both eyeing the other carefully, waiting to see who would make the first move.

And then it lunged forward baring sharp teeth and claws.

Jaune ran and slid under it as it brought its claws forward; he threw his sword out and cut it across its leg. The beowolf tumbled forward, as Jaune rushed to finish it, it saw him coming and struck out with one arm, pushing Jaune back.

"You're a nasty bugger aren't you?" Jaune growled, as if in agreement the beowolf let out a piercing screech that stunned Jaune momentarily, it lunged forward again unmindful of its wounded leg and made to seize Jaune. Jaune stepped into the strike and slashed the arm that came forward, the beowolf howled in pain and reared back on its one good leg. This time Jaune charged and slammed the blade right through the beowolf's chest before it could recover, the beowolf seemed to gurgle, and then it looked at Jaune.

Then it raised its one good arm and slashed at him.

Jaune had no time to react as he was flung to the side; thankfully his aura took most of the damage for him although it left a large scratch across his chestplate and a terrible ache in his side. He grabbed his dagger and prepared to get back in the fight, until he noticed that the large beowolf was lying still and unmoving with his sword still stuck through its chest, its last attack being one final show of defiance against its hunter.

Jaune quickly staggered over to the disintegrating corpse and was in the middle of pulling out his sword when he heard a rustling behind him; he tore the sword out and spun around…

Coming face to face with a certain heiress.

 _Oh hell no, I'm not dealing with this shit after I just slayed this thing._ Jaune thought angrily as he maintained a cool face.

"Hi there Ms. Schnee, how was your day so far?" He managed; Weiss eyed him and then the beowolf corpse, her eyes proceeded to flicker back and forth between him and the corpse while looking quite thoughtful.

"Hey where're you going? We're supposed to be partners!" Ruby's voice echoed out as she stumbled into view behind Weiss.

 _Thank heavens for Ruby…wait partners?_ Jaune thought as he eyed the two, Ruby herself had gone wide-eyed at seeing Jaune.

"Oh hey Jaune," She gave a weak smile.

"That's it! I'm choosing you to be my partner now!" Weiss pointed at Jaune.

"Wait what? You can't do that!" Ruby cried.

"So what do you say partner? I know we got off to a bad start but I'm pleased to meet you, you can drop the formalities and call me Weiss." She smiled and completely ignored Ruby.

 _We're getting off to an even worse continuation if you keep this up._ Jaune gave a brief glance at a crestfallen Ruby and narrowed his eyes briefly before speaking.

"Sorry, I don't have a partner yet but rules are rules Weiss, first person to make eye contact first is your partner for the next four years, I don't agree with it myself but what're you going to do? Argue with the headmaster?" Jaune put his sword back on his belt and turned away.

"You're making a mistake, I'm sure we could work out our differences." Weiss tried again.

"I'm not sure which of us will be making a mistake if you keep that up." Jaune looked at her over his shoulder.

"How dare you! I-" Jaune promptly tuned her out of his head.

"Good luck Ruby!" He gave a wave behind him to the red reaper and continued walking while Weiss continued mouthing angry statements at him.

 _I hope Ruby's going to be ok though, I don't think they're going to get together very well at this rate, hopefully whatever team she finds herself in will be more supportive._ Jaune thought absentmindedly as he checked the compass application on his scroll and made his way in what he hoped was north. As he continued walking he stepped on a twig and it made a resounding snap.

A sharp whistling sound came by his ear and he found himself thrown against a tree with what looked like a spear stuck through his hoodie.

"Oh come on!" Jaune cried out in frustration as he took hold of the spear and tried to pull it out of the trunk, succeeding just as he heard another twig snap, he immediately raised himself and prepared to return the spear to its sender point first.

And found himself glaring at Pyrrha.

"Oh." He lowered the spear, and then smirked, "if your intention was to kill me, an inch to the left would've done it."

"I'm sorry!" She blurted out; he tossed it back to her.

"Just…don't ever do that again ok? I thought for a moment you were a Grimm that shot spikes or something." Jaune rubbed his forehead and sighed before looking back at her.

"Sorry…" She was more subdued this time and was hanging her head in shame.

"Sure…so…partners?" Jaune scratched the back of his head, truth be told he was thankful that he had met up with Pyrrha, at least it was someone he had been remotely acquainted with.

"Partners." She agreed, her expression more bright now.

"Great, so I guess north is this way according to my scroll," Jaune jerked his thumb in the direction, "unless you happen to know the way?"

"We'll follow your lead." Pyrrha smiled.

"Alright then, let's go." Jaune nodded.

They walked in a comfortable silence for some distance, and then some loud noises echoed off in the distance.

"That's a lot of gunfire." Jaune noted as the sounds continued.

"Seems like our comrades have engaged the enemy." Pyrrha

"Hopefully we all make it through this without anyone dying; I'd hate to be the first to die in initiation." Jaune continued walking.

"I'm sure we'll all be fine."

"We hope, watch the branch," Jaune pushed past a branch and held it to let Pyrrha move past as well before letting it snap back in position.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

* * *

"Seems like you have quite the tale to tell your highness," Ozpin never lost that strange smile of his.

"Don't I?"

"Indeed." _As long as I get to justify an increase in funding later, everything will be fine._

* * *

 _At the clifftop overlooking Emerald forest,_

"How is his highness doing?" Ozpin asked.

"Very well it seems, He was able to get partnered with Pyrrha Nikos right after downing that Alpha beowolf of all people."

"Looks like there's nothing for us to worry about then, his highness basically has a first-class bodyguard with him."

"I wouldn't be so sure of the first part sir, take a look at this." Glynda pointed out something on a camera to Ozpin.

"Ah, well that's…I'm sure they'll be fine." Ozpin sipped.

"Well as long as you're happy to deal with the Crown Prince later…" Glynda trailed off, Ozpin blanched a little and frowned.

"Tell our staff to keep a closer eye." He ordered.

"Of course sir."

* * *

"I don't think this is it." Jaune eyed the dark cave.

"Neither do I," Pyrrha agreed, "we should keep heading north." She turned but Jaune moved to the side of the entrance of the cave looking at the drawings at the side

"I wonder what the story behind this was." He gestured to the drawing depicting a large scorpion being attacked by several people. Pyrrha shrugged in response.

"It must take a brave person to make a sacrifice like that." Jaune placed his hand over the image of two figures facing the scorpion head on while the rest of the figures were behind it.

"I'm sure he was remembered for it." Pyrrha placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Probably, anyway I have no intention of dying here; let's keep moving before something else happens." _And hopefully, the rest of initiation will be quiet._

And then there was a loud rumbling.

"That wasn't me." Jaune immediately said.

"That came from the cave." Pyrrha noted, both simultaneously backed away from the entrance and drew their weapons as the rumbling grew louder and louder. And then from the cave burst an utterly enormous deathstalker.

"Me and my big mouth, and for what it's worth I apologize for jinxing us like that." Jaune deadpanned.

"It's alright." Pyrrha smiled.

"Well there's no way I'm fighting _that,_ shall we?" Jaune placed his sword back on his belt and jerked his thumb to the side as the deathstalker advanced on them menacingly

"Lead the way Jaune." Pyrrha nodded.

"Ok." Both took off sprinting at full speed.

Neither was sure of how far they ran or how long they ran, only knowing that their survival length depended on how fast they're legs were hitting the ground.

"I see something!" Jaune called out, and a moment later they burst out into a clearing, in front of them were some ruins with several recognizable figures milling around with each other.

"What a coincidence." Jaune noted as he kept running.

"What is?" Pyrrha asked from beside him.

"Everyone I ever met is here." He answered, "Hey guys!" He called out.

"Hey Jaune!" Nora answered waving excitedly.

"Jaune?" Blake raised an eyebrow.

"Where is Weiss though?" Jaune wondered as he and Pyrrha continued running with the deathstalker ably following them.

"Is that her?" Pyrrha pointed up.

"Weiss is falling…from a nevermore…?"

"Shouldn't we do something?"

"Why don't you spear her to a tree like you did with me?" Jaune rolled his eyes, to his surprise, while running Pyrrha suddenly threw open her arms, took aim, and hurled her weapon at the falling heiress.

It hit its mark, pinning Weiss to one of the ruined pillars…right through her skirt, causing her to swing downwards and leaving her hanging upside down.

"I'm sorry!" Pyrrha called out.

"I didn't mean that literally but I guess it works too." Jaune noted as he crashed down beside Yang.

"You ok there ladykiller?" Yang smirked.

"Well I'm still alive so that counts for something right?" He answered as Pyrrha followed suit.

"Well the gangs all here! Now we can die together!" Yang sarcastically noted.

* * *

"I still think it's a remarkable coincidence that we all got together like that." Jaune remarked, and then a thought crossed his mind, "you wouldn't happen to have anything to do with it did you?"

"Of course not your highness, I know better than to play favorites in situations such as these, even if you are the prince you still needed to go through initiation like everyone else." Ozpin firmly stated. _Yes, I most definitely didn't want you to get together with the most capable bunch of initiates in the year to form essentially a first-class protection detail for you._

"Huh I see, still we…we really could've used a hand at the last bit though." Jaune complained.

* * *

"Impressive." Jaune watched wide-eyed as the decapitated nevermore fell to the ruins with Ruby standing high above the rest of them.

"She's really good." Pyrrha agreed.

A little while later, after Ruby had gotten down and the eight had met up back together to congratulate each other.

"I don't know about the rest of you but can we get a breather before we head back, I'm totally bushed." Jaune sighed as he fell back against a pillar.

"Of course, whenever you're ready Jaune." Pyrrha sat beside him.

"I agree." Ruby nodded.

"I don't mind." Yang agreed.

"A little rest would be good." Blake answered.

Ren was already collapsed on the ground, he grunted an agreement.

"Aw, you guys are tired already?" Nora pouted.

"What are you idiots doing?! We have an initiation to finish!" Weiss huffed, or at least she tried to, even she was looking wobbly from the exertion.

"Oh just sit your ass down and relax Weiss-y, we just killed a bunch of big-ass Grimm, we're gonna get a whole bunch of points for this!" Yang responded.

Weiss rubbed her forehead but sat down anyway, the rest collapsed around the area on various blocks of ruins, the sole exception was Nora, who continued poking Ren, who was ignoring her.

Jaune suddenly remembered his water canteen on his back pouch, he took it out and took a long, slow gulp of water, and then noticed everyone staring at him, or rather staring at the canteen. Even Pyrrha seemed quite interested.

Jaune smirked and passed it to her, "pass around guys, we'll have a better celebration when we get back, drinks are on me."

"Thanks Jaune." Pyrrha smiled as she took a small gulp and passed it on.

Before long it reached Weiss, who only had a small sip no thanks to Yang and Nora, she growled a little at this but passed the canteen back to Jaune with a small mumble of thanks before sitting back down.

Just then, Jaune's scroll started buzzing, Jaune fumbled a little before he took it out and noticed the caller, surprised at who it was he answered it, "Headmaster?"

"I'd like to personally congratulate you and all the others for a job well done, and while I understand the need for a period of rest after such an exerting event, I feel it prudent to alert you to certain circumstances." Ozpin answered.

"What circumstances?" Jaune asked, wondering if he even wanted to know.

Almost as an answer, a terrible shrieking roar echoed through the area, sending a chill up everyone's spine. Jaune blanched, he knew where that roar came from.

"What was that?" Yang asked, looking from side to side.

"That didn't sound very good." Blake looked incredibly tense, even Ren was awake now.

"An S-rank Grimm has appeared in the area, I believe you were _personally acquainted_ with one of its kind." Ozpin continued dryly, the scroll fell out of Jaune's hand and clattered to the floor.

"Jaune? What's wrong?" Pyrrha put a worried hand on his shoulder.

"We can't stay here any longer." He grit his teeth, another roar sounded, everyone trembled and started standing up, even Ren was struggling.

"Jaune? What's going on?" Pyrrha looked worried.

"We're getting out of here! Everyone on your feet now, we have to move! Nora grab Ren and let's go!" If anyone wanted to protest the order, they were answered with an even louder roar. Just like that everyone was up and moving, Nora heaved Ren over one shoulder .

"Do we even know where we're going?" Weiss called out.

"Anywhere but that roar is good!" Jaune answered.

"South! Let's head south back to Beacon!" Ruby answered.

"Good call! Everyone run now!" Jaune shouted and they all took off together. Mere minutes later another roar sounded, whatever it was, it was right behind them now. Ruby turned her head ever so slightly to try and see what it was before she snapped back at the sound of Jaune's voice.

"Don't look back! Just keep running!" Jaune shouted, and then a shadow passed over the cohort of hunters-in-training, all of them skidded to a stop as a massive black beast bigger than the Nevermore and the deathstalker planted itself firmly in front of them and turned to look at them.

It was terrifying to behold, its face had the shape of a snarling human with a shark-like mouth where three rows of teeth grinded against each other in a painful cacophany, it had the body and mane of a lion and a scorpion's tail at the back, a set of monstrous, bat-like wings on its back completed it. And then it roared right in front of them, a piercing trumpeting noise that filled the ears of the hunters-in-training and stunned them even as they tried to stuff their fingers in their ears.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!" Yang yelled.

"That's a Manticore! Everyone get to cover now!" Jaune barked and the group scattered as fast as they could. Just in time for the monster crouch low on its forelegs raised its tail and released a barrage of spikes. To their horror, they saw the spikes hit with enough force to crack and smash into solid stone blocks.

"Don't let a single spike touch you! It's poisonous and you can kiss your pretty life goodbye if you get hit!" Jaune shouted and raised his shield just in time to block another spike; the force pushed him back.

"I don't even think that's a concern Jaune!" Blake shouted as she dodged another barrage, one spike knocked into the top of a pillar, bringing a shower of debris.

"Retreat! Head into the ruins, we can't face it here!" Jaune called out, everyone began dodging, ducking and weaving, desperately trying to avoid the spikes that sent dust and debris into the air with every strike.

"This is some shit we're in." Yang swore loudly.

"Language sis!" Ruby said.

"Oh really Ruby? That's what you're concerned about?" Yang shot back.

"Both of you be quiet! Focus on surviving first!" Weiss scolded.

"There behind that wall!" Pyrrha pointed out and leapt into a set of ruins, everyone else closely followed and backed up against the wall.

"Any ideas?" Nora asked as she let Ren down, he had recovered enough that he could move and fight on his own.

"Let's surround it and attack from all sides, that tail isn't omni-directional, it can't target _all_ eight of us at once." Weiss said.

"That's the most intelligent thing you've said all day." Yang smirked.

"Why you-!" Weiss started but was interrupted.

"Ladies you're both really pretty but can we focus please?" Jaune growled at each of them.

"Weiss has a point; let's wait for it to get close, surround it and take it down." Blake nodded.

"How does anyone here propose to take down something that can fly, well not really fly, hop short distances more like, but still?" Jaune grumbled.

"I'll restrain with my dust, the rest of you just focus your fire on it." Weiss glared at him, Jaune sighed.

"Well no one else has a plan yet, so we'll go with you Weiss."

"Alright, let's wait for it to get close, and then we go all out." Weiss ordered, she peered around the corner watching the Manticore cautiously making its way towards them.

"Ok, on my mark…" A long pause followed.

"Your suspense is killing me Weiss-y." Yang deadpanned, right then everyone jumped as a spike pierced right through the wall mere inches from Jaune's head, he glanced at it before looking at Pyrrha.

"If this becomes a trend I'm blaming you for starting it." He said.

"I'm sorry." Pyrrha responded.

"Are we ready?" Weiss hissed, and then everyone was tense again, the Manticore was almost on top of them.

"Go!" Weiss pulled around the corner and made an ice wall that froze the Manticore's forelegs to the ground.

"Hit it!" Yang shouted and everyone charged as one, Blake, Ren and Ruby aiming for its flanks with their speed and agility, and then the Manticore did something completely unexpected.

It spread its wings and started flapping them hard, buffeting everyone with an incredible force and forcing them back before letting another barrage fly, this time at the ice and shattered it, it then used its wings to hop back a large distance and decimated the wall they had been hiding behind.

"There goes our cover, what now?" Ren asked.

"I see a ditch right over there! We just need to get to it!" Ruby pointed out.

"Nora and Pyrrha distract it, try and blind it so that we can get to cover!"

"No problem Jaune I got just the thing!" Nora grinned as she loaded a single grenade into her launcher and fired it at the Manticore's face, it hit with a loud puffing noise and began pouring smoke over the area.

"Nice smoke grenade, let's move people." They all ran for it while the Manticore was blinded and flailing around, shooting spikes every which way as the group hugged the slope of the ditch.

"Do you have a plan?" Pyrrha asked.

"We need to clip one of those wings first, reduce its mobility; otherwise it'll just fly back and hit us whenever it wants to."

"Assuming we can even get close enough, how do you intend to spread it out so we have a better chance? Better yet, we need to pin it so that we have time to cut it." Weiss noted.

Jaune thought for a moment and then remembered something.

"Maybe we won't have to get so close, Ruby and I will charge at it head on, Blake and Ren flank from the sides. Pyrrha, when it spreads its wings to fall back, I want you to pin one of them to something to keep it open, then either Blake or Ren can tear that wing to pieces, Yang, Nora and Weiss give us some cover. Alright, everyone ready?" Jaune looked around; everyone wore a grim face but nodded.

"Ok…wait for it to come closer." Jaune hugged the bottom of the ditch; he waited for the Manticore until it was almost in view, and then gave the order.

"NOW!" He leapt out of the ditch with his shield forward with Ruby right behind, the Manticore seemed almost startled but nevertheless responded swiftly with a barrage –and promptly received a grenade in its face-, several slammed uselessly into Jaune's shield and the sheer force nearly threw his charge off balance but Jaune forcibly steadied himself and kept going, and then noticed something.

There was nothing Pyrrha could pin the wing too.

The destruction the Manticore had caused trying to find them had rid the area of useful objects; but there was not any cover worth mentioning, if they stopped now half the group would be exposed with nowhere to hide. Jaune willed himself on even as Ruby gave covering fire with what few rounds she had left to spare, with Jaune taking the brunt of the beating she activated her semblance and dashed forward right into its face with her scythe ready. The Manticore reared up, dodging the slash and as if on cue opened its wings to escape.

 _Please Pyrrha, please find a way, any way or we're all dead._ Jaune pleaded in his head, as he crouched and blocked another barrage of spikes, and then he heard the Manticore let out a painful roar. He peered over the top of his shield and found that the wing had indeed been pinned open, but how? Without any cover…and then he saw it.

The red and gold spear sticking out of the joint that connected the wing to the body.

 _Pyrrha you magnificent genius!_ Jaune thought happily as he watched Ren jump with help from a glyph and slashed holes all over the exposed wing, the Manticore cried out in pain and twisted to the side, Ren barely dodged its tail as it swept over him and retreated to Jaune.

"Ruby! Get its tail!" Jaune called out as he ran forward.

"I'm on it! Blake try and restrain the tail for me! Help her out sis!" Ruby shouted as she sped around, the Manticore jumped back, trying to put distance between itself and the speedy huntress.

"Got it." Blake answered, by this time the rest of the crew had entered the fight, Pyrrha had retrieved her weapon while Nora was finished the last of her ammo at it from behind Jaune. Both covered Yang as she raced towards Blake, who was trying to tie the tail down with Gambol Shroud as it flicked to and fro throwing spikes everywhere as the Manticore twisted and turned and slammed the ground with its legs, kicking up dust everywhere. Blake managed to loop Gambol Shroud's ribbon over the tail as it passed over her, and used her semblance to barely escape a trio of spikes, she nearly lost her grip on her weapon as the tail flicked. At that moment Yang finally reached her and grabbed hold off the ribbon even as the tail reversed, Blake paused for a moment.

"Just hold it there for a moment Yang." She said, Yang nodded and Blake tightened the ribbon a hard as she could and slammed Gambol Shroud blade first into the ground.

"Now Ruby!" She called out.

"Here I go!" Her speed boosted with a glyph, Ruby swung around and with her scythe held out wide, cleanly sliced off the tail. The Manticore roared in pain and began swiping and kicking with its legs madly

"We've got it on the run people, let's finish it off!" Jaune shouted.

"We're not getting any closer if it keeps doing that though." Weiss tiredly said, the group was standing off for the moment, although they surrounded it on all sides they were wary of coming close to the thrashing monster.

"Yeah I wish there was a way to knock its forelegs down though, or at least hold it in place." Jaune growled.

"Well then you're lucky I saved one last ice dust catridge." Weiss gave a smug smirk.

"Perfect! You can restrain the legs while Pyrrha and I cut the other." Jaune nodded, "on your go Weiss."

Weiss readied Myrtenaster, waiting for the perfect moment, just as foreleg touched the ground…

"Now!" She shouted, Myrtenaster activated and a wall of ice froze the foot of one foreleg, the Manticore stopped thrashing, stumbled and howled, no longer free to move. Both Pyrrha and Jaune simultaneously charged, Jaune slid under and cut the inner leg while Pyrrha sliced through the outer leg, both blades made in the middle and sliced the leg clean off. The Manticore roared and collapsed onto its side.

"Nora! Send it flying." Jaune growled as he came out from under the beast.

"One Grimm air mail coming right up!" Nora charged and hit the Manticore with an upward blow beneath its head that sent it rearing on its hind legs and broke the ice on its remaining forelimb.

"Finish it sis!" Ruby shouted at near exactly the same time.

"It's _wrecked_." Yang ran up from behind the Manticore, propelled herself up with a short boost and then slammed right into the Grimm's head, sending it right into the ground so hard it popped its head like a balloon and shook the ground on landing. Yang executed a perfect dive roll ending in a three-point landing.

"Is it…is it over?" Pyrrha whispered as she tried to catch her breath.

"Seems to be the case." Jaune nodded, already the large Grimm was beginning to decay and let off wisps of black smoke. He collapsed to his knees and started laughing.

"Jaune…?" Pyrrha knelt beside him and asked in a concerned tone.

"You bunch of damn rascals, we actually did it." He flashed a wide grin at her which she returned.

"Woohoo! Did you see that?! Manticore has been… _cored_ out." Yang cheered as she dusted her hands off to groans all around and a small snicker from Jaune.

"Nora gave it a pretty good _hammering_ though." Jaune chuckled, to even more groans around.

"Yeah she did, but I made it eat dirt." Yang smirked; Jaune responded by rolling his eyes and returning the smirk, he then had an idea.

"Pyrrha, come over here for a moment." Jaune walked in front of the Grimm, stretched out his hand and gestured to his partner.

"Jaune? What-oh!" Pyrrha exclaimed in a surprised tone as Jaune pulled her beside him once she took his hand; he held out his scroll in front of him and pressed it, smirking as he snapped a quick photo.

"This is a pretty momentous occasion; I feel we should make a memory of it." He grinned as Pyrrha blushed lightly and nodded.

"Hey hey! What about us?" Nora cheered excitedly and jumped in behind Jaune, tugging Ren to her side.

"Yeah! I want a picture too!" Ruby nodded as she rushed in beside Jaune.

"Oh you are _not_ leaving me out of this." Yang grinned as she stood behind Ruby.

"Have you all lost your minds? We _still_ have an initiation to finish!" Weiss replied indignantly.

"I don't think it's a bad idea…" Blake smiled, looking at the beast that _she_ had helped kill, and moving to stand beside Yang.

"Wha-?" Weiss quickly realized she stood alone.

"Oh don't be such a sourpuss Ms. Schnee, if you don't want to be in the picture, would you kindly at least take it for us?" Jaune handed her his scroll, Weiss growled, but took up the scroll anyway, seeing all the tired but smiling, smirking and grinning faces, she hesitated. With a sigh she moved to stand beside Ruby and held the scroll over her head, unfortunately she did not take into account her own height in relation to Jaune and Pyrrha and so was left fumbling with the scroll as she tried to capture all of them _and_ the decaying Grimm in the background.

Jaune gave a sigh of frustration, "never mind just give it back." Without waiting he snatched the scroll out of Weiss's hands and raised it above him ignoring the rather cross look she gave him.

"Smile." He said and pressed the button.

* * *

"It's certainly generated quite the buzz on the Rem-net; everyone was talking about the 'outstanding eight' of first-year initiates who took out an S-ranked Grimm on their own without any aid from the staff." Ozpin said as Jaune handed the picture back.

"I heard about that, nuts to it, and I thought I was here as a prince-in-hiding." Jaune sighed and put his head in his hands.

"That may be so, but while you are here you are _also_ a hunter-in-training even if it is nothing more than a cover, I wish that you would keep that in mind more."

"Understood headmaster."

* * *

 **Toughest part of writing this chapter was trying to give everyone something to do in the Manticore fight so you don't get characters standing around looking silly, originally it was written more similarly to how a 10-man dungeon raid group would've handled a boss fight, mid-way I realized it was kinda stupid since the nominal "tank" (i.e. Jaune) isn't all that tanky.**

 **So I tried to change it into something with more resemblance to a MOBA-style gank, giving disabling, initiating and nuking roles to whoever I thought deserved the role more.**

 **I hope it worked.**

 **Another thing I also tried to do is not let Jaune overshadow Ruby completely, so in the battle with the Manticore Ruby is perfectly capable of giving out secondary orders on her own that aid in the battle. It may be Jaune's story but Ruby definitely earned her leadership role so I think its fair she gets her own due.**

 **Hopefully that worked too.**

 **Jaune would've originally fought a Cleric Beast (From _Bloodborne_ ), I felt that was a little too much though, so went with the alpha beowolf. And on a bloodborne note Jaune's main weapon is based off Ludwig's Holy Blade, except its not quite as big and merely turns Jaune's knightly sword into a longsword.**

 **This omake crossover was born out of the thought of seeing various RWBY characters switched into Lord of the Rings scenes.**

* * *

 **The Lord of the Dust**

"So be it." Ozpin commanded, "You shall be Team XRRNVAWB or X-ray and Vav."

...

"Fly you dolts!" Weiss shouted before she let go of the edge.

...

"Blake! What do your cat ears hear?"  
"They're taking the hunters to Mountain Glenn!"

...

"Airships! The airships are coming!"

...

"Do you not know death when you see it Schnee?" The lieutenant hissed. "This is _my_ hour!"

...

"Children of Vale! Atlas! Mistral and Vacuo! My brothers and sisters! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day! An hour of Grimm and shattered shields, when the Age of Men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand! Hunters! Of Remnant!" Jaune raised his sword high and everyone cheered madly.

* * *

 **You may have to squint to see the "X-ray and Vav" in the team name (Or else its X-ruh N' Vaab), blame Jaune for being the only character with a last name that starts with a vowel.**

 **I'll be honest, hearing Weiss shout "Fly you dolts!" sounded way funnier in my head.** **As did "What do you cat ears hear?"**

 **Should also totally be Jaune's final speech just before an army of hunters take on Salem's Grimm army in her own dimension while Ruby and Weiss sneak through a back door to face Salem herself.**

 **As always, I appreciate all reviews, faves and follows!**


	6. Where we are

**And with this chapter we have reached "real time", events have more or less caught up to the present and from this chapter onward, most scenes will take place in the present with notices given from when they become flashbacks.**

 **This chapter presents a little something for the Arkos-fans, some fluffy sweetness between Jaune and Pyrrha on the rooftop canonically at the end of "Jaunedice" is all.**

 **Also, more visions and world-building backstory, in this particular one I apologise first and foremost for any inconsistencies, I've edited and rewritten a bunch of times so a few things might be out of place. I ran through the whole thing several times to rid it of mistakes so I hope its fine.**

* * *

 _A man in dirty, dented, worn out plate armor sidestepped to avoid the overhead swing of another soldier's warhammer. The first man wore a plain tunic that bore a double yellow crescent, a symbol of the royalists._

 _All around them the chaos of war raged as men fought and died for their causes, desperately grappling, smashing and slashing each other to pieces in front of a great gate with walls casting a shadow around them. Compared to the plate armor worn by first man, the second only wore light padded and was a rather inexperienced grunt as he completely over-swung, staggering forward as he did. The first man took advantage of this as he sidestepped and cut the second down from behind with his longsword._

 _As he turned, another rebel soldier came at him from the side; this one had a sword as well as made for a horizontal slash at the knight. The knight sidestepped again and blocked the rebel's attack from the side, he then hooked his arm around the rebel's arm and swung him to away, he then used the momentum from his swing to cleanly decapitate yet another rebel soldier attempting to join in the attack. He then reversed and rammed his sword through the face of the one he swung out of the way._

" _Jean! The tower there!" One of his allies called out and pointed to one of the towers overlooking the area; it was not a part of the main wall but was connected to it via a secondary wall. Jean could see the other royalists being overwhelmed on the tower from where he was._

" _I'm going there now!" He shouted back as he raced to a series of steps outside that led into the tower, if it fell then the rebels would have another means of breaking into the castle._

 _He ran as swiftly as he could, dodging other combatants as he made his way to the tower. Suddenly, about a dozen rebels poured out of the tower and down the steps, making their way back into the battle. Jean paused for a moment in his charge before raising his sword and giving a cry, just as he did however a rain of arrows saturated the rebels, he turned his head and looked to the trees a distance away, looking for –and spotting- a certain ranger with a longbow wearing a flowing green cloak. The two exchanged a knowing look and Jean continued on his charge._

 _He raced up the steps as fast as possible, as he exited on to the floor that connected the tower with the wall, just in time to face a rebel knight charging at him, Jean moved forward as well, meeting the rebel right at the doorway leading out onto the wall, Jean parried the swing, using his sword to pin the poleaxe against the doorway, he twisted around and body-slammed the rebel into the wall. He quickly swung his sword to try and decapitate the rebel but to his surprise, the_ _rebel _knight apparently anticipated him and ducked low, causing Jean's sword to get stuck in the doorway, the rebel then attacked Jean with the handle of his poleaxe, thrusting it backwards into Jean's chest and pushing him back, the force allowed Jean to pull the sword free, although the blow stunned him enough that the rebel grabbed him and it was Jean's turn to get slammed into the side of the doorway. The two successive blunt forces stunned Jean enough that he collapsed onto his knees shaking his head as he looked up at his enemy.__

" _DIE!" The rebel knight shouted with his poleaxe raised high above his head; Jean immediately took advantage of the opening, grabbed his sword and thrust it right through the knight's throat, pulling it out as the rebel made a gurgling noise and dropped._

" _You first." Jean remarked quietly, he gave just a moment to catch his breath before he turned his attention to the wall, just in time to see several rebels throw a royalist over the edge._

 _With a thunderous cry of rage, he raised his sword once again and charged as several more arrows flew over his head, reducing the number of royalists on the wall to just two. He parried the blow from the first and ran him right through the chest, the second was more cautious and waited for a bit, Jean however did not, gripping his longsword by the blade, he brought it down on the second man, the man brought his spear up to block the blow, allowing Jean to hook it with his sword's crossguard and pull it away from the man, he then raised his sword one more time and slammed the hilt onto the man's helmet before grappling him and throwing him over the edge._

 _He spun around, checking for more enemies, but there were none left._

" _Jean, there you are!" A voice called out, and out from the tower where he had come strode two other men, the one who called him was a burly man clad in similar plate armor who wielded a large warhammer and had a rebel in a headlock, the one who followed behind wore a simple set of robes and carried a quarterstaff. Jean raised an eyebrow._

" _What are you doing with that Mason?"_ _Jean gestured to the struggling rebel._

" _Oh this? Just having some fun 'is all." He then brought up his hammer and caved in the helmet of the_ _rebel, letting him fall to the floor with blood pouring from the helmet._

" _Yes, and your fun got you separated from the main force, you were surrounded, and would've met an untimely end if I did not pull you out from there." The second man rolled his eyes._

" _Aw lighten up Mitch, it's a battle, it's supposed to be fun!" Mason grinned._

" _I have little understanding of how bloodshed like this can be 'fun'." Mitch shot back._

 _Jean smiled, and was about to interject when a flash of green appeared in his vision between himself and the other two._

" _Jean." The ranger acknowledged as she pulled her hood back, revealing long, flowing crimson locks and a pair of fox ears on her head, a long slender, heart-shaped face and sharp brown eyes._

" _Darn woman, do you always have to do that?" Mason growled playfully, the ranger ignored him._

" _Robina, how goes the battle?"_ _Jean asked._

" _We're pushing the rebels back, or should I say forward? Either way they won't last long for now, not between us and the castle." So saying she turned to observe the fighting going on below. She fitted an arrow to her bow and loosed it,_ _Jean watched it arc downwards and into the throat of a rebel standing over a royalist._

" _My scouts report that the enemy is moving more forces into this area, it seems they believe this is the focal point of the siege." She observed the battle below with a wistful look._

" _Let them come! We'll beat their skulls in!" Mason cheered, right then Robina's ears twitched._

" _We've got company." She hissed and turned back to the tower. A large group of_ _rebels were making another go for it._

" _There they are! GET THEM!" One of the_ _rebels shouted._

" _For the rightful king!" Jean shouted back, as he raised his sword and charged, the others following suit. Arrows flew, swords clashed and hammers were swung in a cacophony of metal._

* * *

"The dreams are getting…really intense, sometimes I don't really know if they're dreams anymore, sometimes they feel like they're becoming my own memories." Jaune shivered a little.

Ozpin remained quiet this time, but motioned for Jaune to continue.

"Well and that's why I'm here I guess, but I suppose if it is nothing but my semblance, then there's nothing to worry about right?"

"Well your highness if it really is your semblance then there is little that I, or indeed any of the other staff can do, a person's semblance is as you know totally unique to each and every person, a reflection of who we are as people, it seems that the only thing you can do at this point is to learn to live with it."

Now it was Jaune's turn to be silent.

"If you really want my advice, look to your teammates and friends, they will be your biggest supports."

"My biggest supports huh…"

* * *

 ** _Earlier today,_**

"Hm…" Jaune picked at his food nonchalantly.

 _I wonder who I should talk too about this, I doubt uncle knows anything about this, mother and father are out on another mission so I can't simply ring them up, I don't think any of my sisters would have a clue as to what any of the dreams mean and neither would fightmaster Hans or any of the Royal servants._ Jaune thought to himself, completely unmindful of the world around him. He had set his mind first on seeing Headmaster Ozpin about his problem, but then decided against having to deal with the overly cryptic man and was thinking about alternatives, unfortunately he could find none.

 _I guess I really will have to go to the Headmaster, he would be the most knowledgeable about this subject, I hope at least._ Jaune sighed, and then noticed that both his own team and RWBY were staring at him.

"Yes?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Sighing rather loudly there ladykiller." Yang grinned.

Jaune tensed for a moment before he gave a small smile at her nickname for him, "Ladykiller huh, well…they do say I have a… _killer_ swing." He returned.

"Hah! See? Jaune understands my genius." Yang folded her arms and nodded.

"I can't say _I_ understand why you willingly go along with all of this." Weiss gave a skeptical look to Jaune.

"Lighten up a little Ms. Schnee, no need to rain on others' parade." Jaune rested his head in his palm while looking at her.

"Hmph." Weiss scoffed and returned to her food.

"Or would that be _snow_ on their parade in your case?" Jaune remarked. Weiss choked as Yang erupted into laughter.

"I am _so_ marrying you when this is all over." Yang grinned.

" _Yang_!" Ruby whined.

"I will consider your proposition Yang." Jaune nodded as he returned to his own food.

"Oh? Would you now?" So saying Yang got up from her seat and sat beside Jaune, leaning her front on him.

Ren didn't miss the scowl forming on Pyrrha's face.

"Maybe later Yang." Jaune smiled and gently pushed her away.

 _I should probably stop wasting time and just get on with it._ "In any case, I should probably get going; I have to go see the headmaster about something." Jaune said as he got up from his seat.

* * *

"The eccentricity is part of their charm, it surprises me how well we all fit together, although I guess nothing beats bonding quite like fighting an S-rank Grimm together is there?"

"Nothing quite like that indeed."

Jaune sighed and gave a solemn look, which turned into a surprised one when he turned and saw the window outside. The sun was already beginning to set.

"Ah, it's late already, I guess I should be heading back, thank you for your time headmaster."

"Not a problem your highness, feel free to drop whenever you have a problem, and keep me updated on the progress of your dreams and visions, I'm sure they warrant further study."

"Study like Professor Port telling about them study?" Jaune smirked.

"Whichever works for you your highness."

"Alright then, bye for now headmaster." Jaune stood up and moved out of the office.

"I'll see you another time your highness."

Jaune wandered about for a bit through the meandering halls of the academy, looking about as the last rays of light disappeared over the horizon and thinking about all the things that had passed between him and the headmaster over the course of that one afternoon. If the headmaster was right and the visions and dreams were in fact his semblance, what then? It made him dangerous for sure, dangerous to the point of nearly killing Cardin, he supposed he had gotten off lucky though, only a disqualification as opposed to detention. On the other hand he could potentially become a danger to those around him; he would never forgive himself if he hurt one of his own comrades.

He let out a breath he did not realize he had been holding, and was surprised when he realized he'd wandered all the way to the rooftop without even noticing, deciding that a breath of fresh air would help clear the thoughts from his head.

As he stepped out onto the roof he felt a relaxing cool breeze blow through, and noticed a certain crimson haired girl leaning over the railing on her elbows, gazing out into the distance with a…was that a melancholic look on her face?

 _No way in hell I'm going to allow such a sad face despoil such a beauty…nope stop perving on your own partner Jaune, but goddamn if she isn't the picture perfect representation of all that's good with the fairer sex._ Jaune blushed a little and shook his head to try and clear his thoughts away again.

Jaune began walking up to her, _Great, come up for some air and get to see Pyrrha Nikos in a uniform, if that doesn't trigger someone's fetish in Mistral I'm not sure what will._ He thought just before he spoke.

"Pyrrha?" He called out to her.

"Oh Jaune! Where have you been all day?" Pyrrha spun around and asked in a worried voice, "and…how did you find me?"

"Perhaps it is fate? Or an extraordinary coincidence maybe? I was just looking for some fresh air and happened to stumble out onto the roof where my dear partner seems so lonely and appears to be in need of some company." Jaune waxed lyrical with some exaggerated hand gestures.

"But to answer your question, I was in the headmaster's office, talking with him." Jaune stated as he walked up to stand beside her.

"Oh I see, what were you talking about?" Pyrrha turned and resumed looking out into the distance with a light blush on her cheeks; Jaune seemed to enjoy gently mocking and teasing her on and off with a gentle smile ever since they had met, the champion did not mind admitting to herself at least that she really enjoyed it, it made her feel something she had not felt in a long time.

It made her feel like a normal person.

"I've…been, having dreams lately…" Jaune trailed off.

"What kind of dreams?"

"I'd…rather not say." Jaune looked away, only to turn back when Pyrrha gripped his arm.

"Jaune I said it before and I'll say it again, we're partners, so you can tell me anything," Pyrrha gripped harder, making Jaune wince, "I want to help you as your partner."

"Alright well…hmm…where do I start? I guess we'd better sit down first," Jaune sat down slowly while Pyrrha sat beside him, "A lot of the time I see myself in a battle, fire and blood and destruction and screams of the dying all around, other times it's something peaceful like a walk through the forest, or a meeting with friends, its mostly the battling thing though." He sighed, "And it's really vivid, sometimes I wake up and I can still smell the blood and hear the screams, and it's…its really…intense." Jaune held his knees together and looked down.

Pyrrha had no idea what to say to that even as she held his shoulder comfortingly, "Was that what you talked to Ozpin about?"

"Yes, he thinks my semblance might be awakening, said that it could be an ability to look into my ancestors' past and use their knowledge and skills for myself."

"That's incredible Jaune!" Pyrrha said excitedly, "there's so much potential in that, with all the talent and memories of your ancestors you could be the strongest of us all, stronger than me even!"

"Yeah well there's a catch, remember my match with Cardin?"

"Yes of cour- wait you mean that was-" Jaune interrupted her before she could continue.

"When you said that it seemed like I was a completely different person, you were half-right, I felt as if I had lost control of my body, like it was moving on its own and attacking without mercy, if Ms. Goodwitch hadn't been there I…" Jaune trailed off and took several breaths to calm down as the memories flooded back, watching Cardin shift between two different people simultaneously, attempting to kill that same person and almost killing Cardin as a result.

"For a moment I really thought I was going to be a murderer." Jaune gave a weak smile and placed his heel on his forehead, he was surprised when he felt a pair of arms wrap around him.

"You're not a murderer Jaune." Pyrrha stated as if it were a simple fact, Jaune barked a laugh at that.

"How do you know that?" Jaune hung his head before going on, "you know the entire line of the Arc family has been involved in almost nothing but violence and blood, damn near every single one of us has been a general, soldier, warrior, knight or fighter of some sort, the last wielder of Crocea Mors was my granduncle, my grandfather's older brother, he was ambushed and went down fighting Grimm while trying to escort a caravan from a destroyed village, he was only twenty." Jaune took a deep breath.

"So yeah, I really don't want to end up dying like that, or making anyone else die like that."

Pyrrha heard this and tightened her hold, "I wouldn't be partners with a murderer, you're a great leader Jaune, so don't demean yourself like that."

Jaune barked a short laugh, "Thanks for the encouragement Pyrrha, it means a lot to me that my partner trusts me like that. But enough about that, I think I've filled the air with enough melancholy, so what did you guys get up to after I left?"

"Uh…" Pyrrha's smile was replaced with an unreadable expression.

* * *

 _ **Earlier, after Jaune left,**_

"Jaune wait…" Pyrrha attempted to reach for him, but he was already gone. She withdrew her hand sadly and watched him walk away.

 _I really wish he would open up more, he's always off in his own world, I wish I could get into that world of his; I hardly know anything about him._ Pyrrha noted and turned back to the table with a sigh.

"I've just had a thought." Yang said.

"A dangerous proposition," Blake deadpanned without looking up from her book.

"Oh just go back to reading will you? Anyway, how much do any of us actually _know_ about ladykiller here?" Yang looked around the table. Everyone else looked around the table, as if expecting someone to say something.

"He…doesn't really talk about himself." Ren answered.

"He's a really good alarm clock though! 7.30 on the dot every morning! He's like that one really reliable clock that _never ever_ goes wrong at all! He's a _leading_ alarm clock!" Nora waved her arms about.

"It's true, he does a really good job of ensuring that we keep up in our studies and that we get to class on time, but other than that…" Pyrrha trailed off.

"Aw c'mon don't be like that P-money! I saw him holding your hand yesterday as we left class y'know." Yang grinned from ear to ear.

"You could almost say you _Jaune-d_ hands with him." The table groaned.

"That's exactly the issue!" Pyrrha quickly explained while trying hard not to blush, "He's nice, and polite, and friendly, and affectionate, but it all feels so…so _cold_ , it's like he thinks it's just some obligation for him to act this way as opposed to actually being this way."

"So he's _coldly_ affectionate?" Yang continued smiling.

"And have you seen the smile he wears all the time?" Ren said.

"You mean that really _fake_ smile that screams 'I don't really care, I'm just being nice'?" Weiss added with a huff, "Sure I have, it's the one practically every businessman I've ever seen wears when I see them."

"Wow Weiss, you certainly have your _Weiss_ of seeing things."

Weiss' eye twitched at that.

"She has a point though; can anyone remember a moment when Jaune has ever been particularly enthusiastic about anything?" Ruby asked, everyone suddenly looked thoughtful

"Well he seems to like Oobleck and his history class." Ren answered.

"He does doesn't he? He follows Oobleck superbly well, sometimes even I get lost." Pyrrha admitted.

"But he always falls asleep in Professor Port's class." Weiss noted.

"Weiss, _everyone_ falls asleep in Professor Port's class." Yang countered.

"Not me I don't, while the rest of you are busy slacking off I'm taking notes!" Weiss folded her arms and turned up her nose.

"I've read your notes, all you do Weiss, is write a summarized version of what he's saying, that's not taking notes." Yang argued.

"It's for later analysis!"

"Can we get back on topic please?" Ruby pleaded.

"Oh fine, so what does it matter of Jaune's doesn't really care? It's got nothing to do with us, if he's got his own business to attend to why should we interfere?" Weiss rolled her eyes and resumed her attention on her nails.

"How about combat class with Professor Goodwitch?" Ruby continued.

"I think Glynda made an exception for him after he almost killed Cardin, I don't think I've seen him go up since then." Ren said.

"Maybe Glynda was scared he was going to kill the next person he went into the arena with." Yang added.

"He wouldn't do that!" Pyrrha defended.

"How do you know that? How much control does he have over himself anyway?" Yang questioned.

"He makes a lot of scroll calls at night when he thinks we're all sleeping." Nora suddenly interjected.

"Really? To who?" Pyrrha suddenly whipped to face Nora.

"It's usually his uncle or his sister apparently, well I at least it should be that way I guess since he always greets them as either 'uncle' or 'sis', and he spends a lot of time talking to them about his life and us." Nora explained before she started inhaling more pancakes.

"Then he's a little homesick, so what? Everyone gets a little homesick every now and then, he's as normal as the rest of us." Weiss rolled her eyes, the others settled down and considered her point, seeing the silence she continued, "so in conclusion,from this _very meaningful and deep_ conversation that we have just had, we can therefore conclude that...?" Weiss trailed off to let her point sink in.

"Well I guess this means Jaune Arc's quite the…err… " Yang scratched the back of her head for a moment.

"Yang?" Ruby paused before inserting another cookie into her mouth.

"I got it!" Yang clapped her hands and leaned forward with a dangerous grin on her face.

"Here we go…" Blake muttered quietly.

"Perm- _arc_ -frost." Yang smirked.

Everyone banged their heads onto the table.

* * *

"And that's what happened." Pyrrha finished, making sure to leave out some of parts she thought Jaune would have found more demeaning.

"Yang and her puns." Jaune shook his head with amusement in his voice.

"I can tell she's a really friendly person though, she means well." Pyrrha gave a slightly pained smile as she released Jaune. There was a pause before she continued.

"Jaune, about what Yang said…" Pyrrha trailed off.

Jaune stared at her with a confused look, and then realization dawned on his face, "What do you…oh…haha…well don't tell me you took that seriously?" Jaune gave a nervous chuckle.

"Well-"

"Yang's a _really good friend_ Pyrrha and I mean it, it's nice having someone I can just fool around with a bit and have fun, she flirts with me, I flirt back, we laugh and continue on our merry way." Jaune explained, "I haven't been able to really just cut loose and enjoy life like that in some time."

"Oh, I see, that's a relief." Pyrrha muttered the last part quietly; _I wish you would do that with me though._

"Hm? Did you say something?"

"Huh? No! I meant…err…" Pyrrha stuttered for a bit before speaking, "what I wanted to say was, didn't you say before that you lost control of yourself while fighting? So I was thinking that if you want to practice control, we could train together up here, where no one can bother us."

"What makes you think I need training?" Jaune gave a mock expression of disgust at the word.

Pyrrha was immediately flustered by that remark, "No not that! I meant…sparring! Yes sparring!" She nearly shouted in confirmation.

"Sparring? So that you can have more opportunities to throw _that_ and kill me? What, was initiation not enough for you? I guess I should've expected as much, partnering with the champion of Mistral is a dangerous affair indeed, _such bloodlust_ , I'll need to be more careful around you in the future." Jaune sighed and shook his head as he took a step away from her.

Pyrrha saw that happen and panicked, "N-no! I didn't mean it that way! What I meant was…" Pyrrha tried to reach for him but stopped when she saw Jaune laughing.

"W-what're you laughing at?" She questioned, now with an embarrassed expression on her face.

"You of course, if I had my scroll on hand right now that face would've been captured immediately." Jaune smirked, Pyrrha went bright red and hung her head.

"You're so weird Pyrrha," Jaune continued smirking as he moved closer to her, "you always try to help out but when someone gets even the least bit offended you throw out all the stops to apologize and make up for it."

"I-I'm sorry."

"And there you just went, you don't _have_ to apologize for everything you know, I mean it's nice that there are still people willing to be nice and polite and everything, but there's such a thing as being _too nice_." Jaune smiled at her, "don't let people take advantage of that ok?" They exchanged a look.

And then Jaune started snickering.

"Ah, what the heck, I…shouldn't be telling you what to do with your life," Jaune placed his head on his arms and looked out over the railing, his voice suddenly solemn.

"Jaune…what's wrong?"

"Nothing at all, nothing of your concern," he paused and continued before Pyrrha could say anything, "so…sparring huh? It will be an honor to have you as my teacher Pyrrha, I look forward to seeing you waste this pathetic knight." He gave a rather grim smile.

"Don't condemn yourself like that Jaune, you have a lot of potential I'm sure of it, we'll work together on it, and…maybe you could show me some of your techniques to." Pyrrha offered.

"I find it hard to believe that I have anything to offer you to exchange." Jaune raised an eyebrow.

"It's true!" Pyrrha exclaimed, "In all my years fighting hundreds of opponents I've never seen anyone so counter-intuitively grab a sword by the blade and use the handle as a weapon! It's ridiculous!"

"It's actually a technique used when fighting an armored opponent, your sword may not always be able to cut _everything_ it goes up against, so sometimes a little brute force, a little blunt force trauma is required."

"I…see, that makes sense, but still…to just grab a sword by the blade! Won't you cut your hands to pieces? And moreover, you have a shield; you could just use that to bash the opponent."

"But the shield is limited in flexibility, while the sword can still be swung like a mace, besides all you need is a really firm grip, just make sure your hand doesn't slide along the blade and you won't get cut, besides we both wear gloves while fighting so it isn't that bad." Jaune paused, "and I prefer the two-handed style, I don't have a fancy transforming gun-slash-sword-slash-spear thing anyway."

"It's a javelin." Pyrrha corrected.

"Right, _javelin._ " Jaune answered, "So yeah, I'll stick with the two-hander thanks." He nodded.

"Right of course, I should've known better, you boys and your swords." Pyrrha smirked and rolled her eyes, Jaune gave her a shocked look.

"Wha-what? I'm sorry I-" Pyrrha started but was interrupted.

"Dear diary, today I learned that in addition to sleeping like a complete slob, drooling, and asking for five more minutes, four-time champion of the Mistral regional tournament Pyrrha Nikos also makes dirty jokes." Jaune mimed writing in a small book; he received a hard slap on his arm for that.

"You tricked me!"

"Well you wouldn't get up!"

* * *

 ** _The first morning after initiation,_**

"Ah, that felt great." Jaune stretched his back and gave a satisfied sigh as he rubbed his eyes.

His scroll said it was 7.30 a.m. in the morning, classes started at 9.00 a.m., so there was plenty of time to get ready. At his uncle's mansion that usually meant a cup of tea prepared by Ash first before a nice, long, warm shower and then breakfast and then studying in his own room. Of course that had been before the incident two years ago, and he had been thrust into the care of the fightmaster, and then it had been endless physical training and swordsmanship from sunrise to sunset, he usually got weekends off though, unless the Royal Legion had something special in mind for the weekends, which usually meant joining the night patrol and camping outside in a freezing drizzle.

Well at least he was in Beacon now, so even if there was no early morning tea, and the shower was probably cold, and breakfast was going to be whatever he could get, and studying would be done in a classroom with... _other people_. There would be no more torturous running, no more getting thrashed every single way by the fightmaster, and no more of _goddamn_ walking around in the freezing drizzle that was the Armorican climate.

 _Well it will be a nice change of pace._ Jaune thought happily as he moved to his crimson partner's bed…

And was instantly amazed at the sight.

Pyrrha Nikos, top of her class at Sanctum, four-time winner of the Mistral Regional Tournament and the mascot of that _disgusting cereal_ …was splayed out on her stomach, limbs going every which way, blanket half-covering her body, face turned to the side and a small puddle of drool on the pillow. Jaune stared at the sight slack-jawed before he decided on the most appropriate course of action to take.

 _Goodness there is no way I'm passing up this opportunity!_ Jaune thought excitedly as he reached for his scroll and took a quick snapshot, marveling at the "invincible girl" caught in the most slobbish form possible.

"Time to get up Pyrrha, if I'm going to be leader then I won't have my team sleeping in on the first day." He sat beside her and shook her lightly after carefully putting away his scroll, she mumbled something unintelligible.

"Come on Pyrrha, rise and shine."

"Just five more minutes…" She lightly pushed his hand away.

"If you say so." Jaune acknowledged and went about his business, cleaning up and changing into his uniform, by the time he was done twenty minutes had passed and he decided to try waking Pyrrha up again.

"C'mon Pyrrha, get up, your leader commands you." Jaune stated firmly and shook her a little more roughly.

"I said five more minutes Jaune…" Pyrrha complained and turned to her side away from him.

"Pyrrha it's been five hours! You've slept out the morning classes and its lunchtime now!" Jaune urgently shook her.

"WHAT?!" Pyrrha exploded from the bed, nearly knocking Jaune to the floor as he backed off.

"ohnoohnoohnoohnoohnoohno, what do I do what do I do?! Jaune why didn't you wake me up?!" Pyrrha demanded as she dashed to her wardrobe and starting pulling out her uniform.

 _Wow she looks good in those shorts and that tank top…_ Jaune eyes widened before he pushed those thoughts to the back of his head.

"Well I thought I could trust the great Pyrrha Nikos when she said 'five more minutes' so I left on my own, tsk tsk you've let me down Pyrrha." Jaune shook his head and forced the most disappointed look onto his face that he could manage.

"I-I-I-" Pyrrha stopped and stuttered out in the middle of trying to put on her shirt, and then she noticed something, "Hang on, why are Ren and Nora…?" And then Jaune lost it completely.

He burst out in uproarious laughter.

"What's all this ruckus this early in the morning?" Ren growled as he pulled the pillow over his head.

"MMOORRRNNIINNGG IT'S MOORRRNNIIIGGGG!" Nora cheered at the top of her voice as she launched out of bed.

"I'm so sorry Pyrrha I couldn't help myself; it's only been fifteen minutes, just check the clock." Jaune gestured to the clock that hung above the door. Pyrrha's face changed several times before she gave Jaune an angry look, then she walked over to him and punched him hard on his shoulder.

"Ouch." Jaune rubbed his shoulder and grimaced painfully.

"That was for pranking me like that." Pyrrha smirked.

* * *

"You know I'm pretty sure the tabloids would pay a handsome price for this." Jaune held up his scroll with the picture of Pyrrha Nikos the slob on it. Pyrrha's face turned the same color as her hair, and then…

 _Is that steam coming out of her ears-Whoa!_ Pyrrha tackled Jaune down and locked his arm painfully behind his back.

"Oh crap that hurts! Owowowowowokokyouwin!" Jaune yelled as Pyrrha snatched the scroll from him and quickly deleted the photo before disengaging.

"And the next time you do that, it'll be more than just a locked up arm." Pyrrha smiled triumphantly as she handed the scroll back to Jaune, who had turned over onto his back and was now looking up into the night sky with a solemn face.

"Jaune? I-I didn't hurt you too badly did I…?" Pyrrha quickly knelt by him.

"I wish these nights could last forever." Jaune said suddenly.

"…What do you mean?" Pyrrha sat down beside him and regarded him curiously.

"It's so peaceful here, there's a cool wind blowing, the stars are out, and there is a beautiful girl at my side asking me to train with her, heaven strike me down if I dared dismiss this moment as anything but perfect." Jaune gave a sigh and smiled.

"I-I see…" Pyrrha desperately fought down the blush and was just able to respond, "But that's why we're here isn't it? Training as hunters to keep the peace?"

"I…" Jaune starts but stops.

 _I can't tell her, I can't tell her I never wanted to be a hunter, that'd I'd rather be at home sipping tea, eating cupcakes and just doing my own thing, dreaming of one day being a historian and opening up the Royal Archives to use…_ Jaune thought sadly.

"Jaune? What's wrong?" Pyrrha asked, she had noticed that although Jaune always maintained a cool, calm, collected with a small smile disposition, he had tendency to shift into a much more solemn state at the drop of a hat.

"It's nothing, it's getting late and we should be going back now." Jaune got up first and helped Pyrrha up with a firm hand, the smile was gone now, replaced with a blank expression that did not speak of much, it was just the most bored and unenthusiastic expression she had ever seen.

* * *

 **Admit it, that was your first reaction when you found out about the murder-stroke (German: _mordhau_ ) technique of medieval fencing.**

 **I'll be upfront, Arkos isn't really my favorite ship, neither is Pyrrha my favorite character, here Jaune is willing to as he said "cut loose" and be more friendly and affectionate with those around him, letting the "Arc" on his father's side out more and giving his "Princely" side a bit of a shove, and also take the opportunity to troll others every now and then. Meanwhile Pyrrha is _way_ more attracted to him because unlike canon, Jaune here is a more quietly confident person with the skills to match, as a Prince and a potential heir he's already been groomed to potentially takeover as Duke or even King of Vale in the future.**

 **Ergo, instead of of seeing a dorky, overly cheesy flirty Jaune who appears to have no clue as to what he's doing, she sees Prince Jean as a confident leader with a teasing, smooth-talking disposition. Although Jaune knew from the start who she was, it never stopped him from laughing and joking with her normally, earning him bonus points with her.**

 **Next chapter deals with forever fall, along with lugnut winchester.**

 **This omake deals with a topic I feel is damn near never brought up.**

 **i.e. how Pyrrha's outfit is damn near one of the most impractical ever.**

* * *

 **Impractical things**

"It's true!" Pyrrha exclaimed, "In all my years fighting hundreds of opponents I've never seen anyone so counter-intuitively grab a sword by the blade and use the handle as a weapon! It's ridiculous!"

"Ridiculous? Pyrrha you go to a fight with your hair in a long ponytail, wearing a flowing hip sash, and you have heels on your boots! And don't even get me started on your battle dress!"

"What's wrong with my battle dress?!" Pyrrha cried indignantly.

"Well for starters, you're showing _more_ skin than Yang! Bearing in mind that _she_ is supposed to be one who's flirty and mischievous, on the other hand I suppose it makes sense that you'd want to distract your opponents, I bet you even do high kicks to flash them don't you!"

"I do not!" Pyrrha flushed and shouted.

"Well it's very distracting in any case, I'm sure the rest of the male population would agree, isn't that right Cardin?!" Jaune walked over to the railing and shouted down into the floor below.

Cardin stuck his hand out the window and gave him a thumbs up.

* * *

 **Color me surprised when not a single strand of Pyrrha's hair was burnt off by Penny's lasers during their fight in PvP.**

 **I mean seriously, you'd expect a beam-spamming robot to at least takeout some of that ridiculously long ponytail (That ought to be getting in her eyes more often than not) or even that hip sash (Which is a point of grabbing for any even half decent opponent) she has.**

 **I guess her outfit is all a deliberate ploy to distract her male competitors, it wouldn't take her semblance for a young teenage boy to ah...miss a strike or anything because he accidentally...**

 **You know...**

 **Of course there's a bunch of other things like the combat skirts Weiss and Ruby wear that ought to be getting caught on everything.**

 **Well nevermind about that I guess, I sorta understand that's it all done in the sake of "coolness", I mean for crying out loud Jaune is damn near close to being the only person who wears _any kind_ of armor at all (not counting Ironwood and his cyborg parts)**


	7. Red Sap of Courage

**Title reference is a little obscure, but I think I did Yang proud.**

 **On a side note, do check out my other RWBY fic on my profile "Right (Wo)man in the Wrong Place" basically, instead of Jaune time-traveling back, Pyrrha time-travels forward.**

 **On a personal note, the fic broke through 10,000 views, so thank you for all your continued support.**

 **crazyguy55: I think someone has been reading a few too much RWBY fanfiction, Pyrrha one-sidedly pines away for Jaune, but the closest we get before V3C12 is that scene where she leans on him. Also, we only ever really get that she likes him because he didn't care about her status even after he found out about her, so I'm just working with that as a basis.**

 **Contains just a little Jaune/Nora.**

* * *

Jaune sniffed a little as he watched the bullhead pull into the dock, "I hate flying." He said out of the blue, both his own team and RWBY turned to look at him.

"What's the matter Jaune?" Pyrrha asked.

"I get airsick way too easily," As he said this he took out a small bottle from his pocket, opened it and took out a small white pill.

"What's that?" Ruby asked.

"Airsickness pills," A quick gulp of water from his canteen and he downed it immediately, "let's go already, we have a project to finish." He continued as the doors of the bullhead opened.

"Right, all teams on assignment make your way onto the bullhead now!" Glynda called out, the hunters-in-training began filing into the bullhead, and slowly taking up the space until Glynda herself got on.

"Ok we're all aboard, we're good pilot!" She called out, on command the doors closed and the aircraft lifted off into the sky. Jaune lurched and turned quite green, thanks to the pills though he did not feel anything coming out of his stomach.

"You ok there Mr. motion-sickness?" Jaune responded with a weak smile at Yang's nickname just before he covered his mouth with his hand and gagged. Pyrrha patted on his back comfortingly.

"It's only a short ride Jaune, just hold it in a little while longer." She rubbed his back.

"Thanks Pyrrha, I'll be more comfortable once we touch the ground."

"Just don't puke everywhere if you must do it, I am not letting that get anywhere near me." Weiss growled.

"Understood ma'am." Jaune rolled his eyes.

As Pyrrha had said though, very soon they were on the ground and Jaune stumbled out the doorway and into forever fall gasping and heaving with Pyrrha right behind him.

"I just need a moment." Jaune reassured her as he took in deep breaths, the rest of his team right behind him.

"By the way, I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but I am deathly allergic to red sap." Jaune said, once again out of the blue, "don't worry about me I took some meds before we came here so it should be all fine, just so long as it only touches my skin and I don't accidentally consume it or anything.

"How bad is it?" Pyrrha asked worriedly.

"Pretty bad, if you see me start to die, jab this thing into my outer thigh," Jaune took out a long pen-like device out of his pocket, "it's called an epi-pen, and it will give me precious lifetime until actual help arrives." He noted as he examined it in his hand thoughtfully, before he handed it to Pyrrha.

Pyrrha raised an eyebrow as she took the device gingerly, Jaune saw her hesitation and responded, "I'm entrusting this to you Pyrrha, in the real event precious time will be wasted if you try to dig it out of my pocket, so I'm giving you a spare."

"O-ok." Pyrrha fingered it momentarily before pocketing it herself.

"I know you are experienced in stabbing pointy objects into things, methinks you even like it, so you should have no problem with a little syringe." Jaune did not bother holding back his smirk.

"You're…not going to ever let go of that are you?" Pyrrha gave a weak smile.

"Of course not." Jaune stated as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

"Is there anything else we need to know ladykiller, like if someone sneezes on you might fall over and die or something?" Yang teased.

"I think that applies more to Weiss." Jaune jerked his thumb over at the heiress.

"Hey! I'm not so weak as to just fall over and die because of a sneeze!"

"Don't you mean schneeze?" Yang grinned and everyone groaned,

As the feeling in his stomach disappeared and he began to feel better, Jaune took a moment to take in his surroundings.

 _Red_

Lots of it.

Everywhere he looked the entire area was dyed in a strange crimson red colour, except for the wood and bark of the trees and some visible patches of open ground, everything else was a deep red color, from the tree leaves to the grass on the forest floor and the bushes at the side. It was quite the sight indeed, although normally calm and measured in all his responses, could not help but let his eyes go wide at the sight.

"Whoa." He turned his head this way and that, admiring the view.

"Like what you see Mr. motion-sickness?" Yang grinned.

"Yeah I do, my home certainly wasn't anything like this." Jaune nodded, "it does remind me of something gruesome I read a long time ago."

"Oh? What was it?"

"I can't remember the details that well, but it was a story about someone going to afterlife and finding out that one of the ways you get punished in the afterlife is being made to run though fields of swords and trees of knives, so everything is coated in blood."

"Oh…err…"

"I say, it really puts the bloody in bloody hell." Jaune deadpanned while looking upwards wistfully in a daze, everyone immediately started shifting uneasily away from him, "I wonder how many died to paint this forest?" He continued, making everyone move even further away at that.

Pyrrha was the first to speak up as she gingerly tapped his shoulder, "didn't you say we had a project to complete Jaune?" She gave him a weak smile; he snapped out of his daze and returned the smile.

"Ah, my apologies, I must've been babbling again." Jaune gently put his hand on her own, "you're right we should be going before the Professor has our heads." His smile faded, replaced once again by the eternally bored and flat expression he normally wore as he brushed aside Pyrrha's hand.

"And what may I ask are the eight of you waiting for over there? We have an assignment to complete." Professor Glynda Goodwitch's voice rang out.

"Of course professor we're just taking in the sights, we'll be on our way now." Jaune turned and walked off with the rest following closely behind.

"I'm not sure what I prefer more, bored-as-hell Jaune or creepy-as-hell Jaune." Yang whispered to Blake off at one side.

"I'm sure he's just enjoys messing with people every now and then." Blake rolled her eyes, truth be told she knew Jaune just about enjoyed needling every single one of them about their various characteristics, from Ruby's short height to Ren's sleepiness, for some reason though he seemed to avoid involving her in his antics, perhaps he really had been serious about keeping her secret? Well it was to her advantage anyhow, she did not need anyone joking about it, as long as Jaune kept to himself about her secret everything would be fine.

"I'm not sure that's messing with people Blake, that's downright scary, and you've seen how Jaune messes with people!"

* * *

 ** _Flashback_**

"Oh the nerve!" Weiss growled angrily as she glared at her scroll, causing everyone at the table to look at her.

"Something happen Weiss?" Jaune looked up from his cup of tea.

"Yes! This news report from an insider source claims an official from one of SDC's subsidiaries apparently called my family wasteful and extravagant!"

"That was _very_ impolite and indiscreet of him." Jaune nodded his head.

"Yes it most definitely was and…" Weiss was hit with a sudden realization as she slowly turned to glare at Jaune, at the same time Yang barked a short laugh while Blake pressed her face deeper into her book to conceal a growing smirk.

"Oh and _very wrong_!" Jaune quickly added as he resumed sipping for his cup of tea while looking away from the death glare the resident heiress was giving him. Yang continued snickering while everyone else looked on in confusion.

* * *

"I'm sure he knows what he's doing." Blake sighed and rubbed her temple a little, "besides you seem awfully concerned about him for some reason."

"I'm not concerned about him Blake I'm concerned about me! He _scares_ me Blake, doesn't he scare you?" Yang continued insisting, Blake could only give a rather loud sigh of resignation at her partner.

Some way in front, Jaune looked over his shoulder at the two off to the side, "well those two seem rather lively."

Eventually, Glynda stopped the group and turned, "while I understand that the forest of forever fall is beautiful, this does not excuse you from accomplishing the task you have been set. Professor Peach has asked all of you to collect samples from the trees deep inside this forest, each of you will gather one jar of red sap each. However, this forest is full of the creatures of Grimm, so be sure to stay by your teammates. We will rendezvous back here by 4 o'clock. Have fun!"

"Oh before I forget…one more thing!" She called out, everyone turned to look at her.

"Even though I'm here, try not to die or get injured in any way, the medical expenses will eat into our budget." She focused on Jaune for that last part.

 _Maybe I should just pass on the message to uncle that Beacon wants to make a request for more funding; it would certainly get the hinting off my back._ Jaune thought to himself.

Eventually, they came to an area at the bottom of a small cliff; everyone dispersed to their own trees and began collecting the red sap they had been ordered to. Jaune used his dagger to carve out the bark from a tree branch and positioned the jar accordingly so the sap dripped slowly into the jar below it, that done he took a look around and saw the rest of his team and RWBY ably gathering their own jars of sap. He watched as Ren handed a full jar to Nora while taking an empty jar from her, once his back was turned Nora immediately drained the jar, much to Jaune's astonishment.

"Are you sure that's consumable Nora?" He asked from where he was.

"Who cares? It's _so_ _sweet_ and _sticky_ and _gooey_ and nice!" She cheered as Ren turned to her, Nora could only give an embarrassed smile in return.

"Well it's dripping like a leaking tap here so why don't you just allow Ren to work and drink from here?" Jaune gestured over to the leaking tree branch.

"Thanks leader!" Jaune quickly snatched his jar out of the way as Nora dove to lie on her back and let the substance drip into her mouth, Jaune chuckled as he watched her open her mouth wide and began gulping the sap as it fell into her mouth.

"You're just a bundle of energy aren't you Nora." He smiled, as he crouched beside her.

"Yep!" Nora squeaked in-between gulps.

Meanwhile, Pyrrha was observing him from just a short distance away a growing knot in her stomach. _Why did Jaune have to be affectionate and flirty with everyone else?_ She wondered as she topped off her own jar and capped it, _I get that he's a nice person and all but…I wish I could be the only one he was affectionate with._

Pyrrha gave a little sigh and cursed herself for her own selfish possessiveness and thought back to the talk she had with on the roof, and then a smile appeared on her face, _But I do get to have private training- I mean_ sparring _sessions with him at least, so I think I can afford to let him go for now._ She thought cheerily, as she turned to look at them she had just enough time to regard the jar of red sap flying towards her before it hit her head directly. She was knocked off balance and onto the forest floor, completely blinded by the red sap in her eyes even as her aura resisted any damage the jar might have dealt.

"Pyrrha!" She heard Jaune cry out, she opened her eyes just in time to see him get hit by another jar, he stumbled and fell face first into the ground, the back of his head and upper back covered in the red substance.

"Jaune!" She cried out and raced over to him to help him up as RWBY and NR grasped their weapons and looked around for their assailants.

"Where did that come from?" Ruby asked as she turned her head to and fro with her scythe at the ready.

"Jaune! Are you alright, do you need a jab?" Pyrrha asked worriedly, Jaune stood up straight and passed one hand through his hair and brought it in front of his face to look at the red sap.

"Pyrrha," Jaune gave her a dead serious look.

"Yes Jaune?"

"Is there any way for me to be rid of this mess without betraying this calm exterior?" Jaune motioned first to the sap dripping off of his head and then motioning to himself.

"Way to get your priorities straight there Mr. motion sickness," Yang rolled her eyes, "would you also like some gel to get your hair back into place?"

"No but some water would be nice to wash this off before it potentially kills me," Jaune sighed, "unless of course you would like to see me die painfully gasping of anaphylactic shock, in which case-"

" _O-K_ we get it Jaune!" Yang sharply interrupted him as she wrenched his water canteen from the back of his belt and poured some of it over Jaune's head as he bent over, letting the sap dissolve and run off of his head. She quickly did the same for Pyrrha, just as in time for another crash to sound out.

"What the-" Weiss was able to just make out as a box crashed in the middle of all of them, and a swarm of angry rapier wasps burst out at them.

"Watch out!" Ruby cried out, as the group began flailing madly, Ren and Blake could cut a few out of the air with their light and fast weapons, but the others were mostly powerless to protect themselves.

"Oh for heaven's sake! Everyone hit the dirt!" Weiss used a glyph to dash a short distance away before loading a fire dust cartridge into Myrtenaster, as everyone floored themselves she thrust the weapon forward and activated it, a burst of flame erupted from the tip of the rapier into the air, catching several of the rapier wasps and chasing the rest away.

"Is everyone alright?" Jaune hissed in pain as he lightly dabbed a sting, already his aura was mending away the pain and irritation, did not make it any less annoying though.

"Owie." Ruby flinched as she touched one of the stings, though it to was beginning to heal.

"Where the heck did that come from anyway?" Yang growled, she was answered by a loud roar echoing out over the forest.

"That didn't sound very good." Blake noted, the roar was immediately followed by some garbled shouting, and then Team CRDL sans the 'C' appeared over the hill running at full speed.

"Oh dear, it seems lugnut Winchester is in trouble, probably for causing us this trouble." Jaune said as he watched (C)RDL run towards them. As they went by Yang stretched out her arm and caught Russel Thrush by his collar.

"Whoa where do _you_ think you're going?" She growled dangerously, eyes flashing red.

"Please! There's a _really_ big Ursa back there and it's got Cardin."

"So your first thought was to abandon your own leader, good work on planning that surprise attack on us, not so well with the consequences, really some _team_ you guys are." Jaune smirked as Russell could only manage an embarrassed smile in response.

"Right, if you're not going to fight then get lost, go on, skedaddle." Yang dropped him and he scampered off without another word.

"Alright then, I guess this means that we have to save lugnut Winchester's skin." Jaune sighed as he unclamped his sword and placed it against his shoulder.

"Have to? What for?" Weiss questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"Well I'm not going to let lugnut Winchester die before I get a chance to kill him myself." Jaune turned to her.

Everyone stared at him.

"Hehe, nice one Jaune." Yang gave a weak laugh, Jaune simply stared.

"I'm serious; if anyone or anything is going to kill Cardin it should be me." Jaune stated as he turned and began walking off, he stopped mid-step and turned, "well I'm going then, anyone want to come along?" He asked quizzically, Pyrrha immediately stepped forward.

"I'll go with you," Pyrrha nodded.

"Perfect, Ren and Blake see if you can get Professor Goodwitch, the rest of you hold position while Pyrrha and I go see what's what." Jaune ordered and moved off with Pyrrha following close behind. As they went up the hill they could clearly hear the sounds of battle and increased their pace accordingly, when they got to the top, they found Cardin fighting-or to be exact- _attempting_ to fight of a very large and mean looking Ursa with a lot more spikes than the usual Ursa

"Oh…well that is a _big Ursa_." Jaune swallowed hard and just as he said that _another_ Ursa just as big as the first came out of the woods, clearly having been attracted by the commotion.

"Cardin's in trouble." Pyrrha looked on at the sight and then back at Jaune who was busy unclamping Crocea Mors from its blade-sheathe and expanded his shield in the classic sword and board style.

"You take the one on the right, in the meantime I'll save lugnut Winchester's hide." He said while pointing his sword appropriately, "You with me partner?" He put on the bravest face he could manage.

"Of course Jaune." Pyrrha nodded.

"Perfect, let's go." Both took off running at their respective targets.

Jaune ran full speed and watched as the Ursa cast aside Cardin's weapon, leaving him completely open and defenseless, the Ursa stood poised over Cardin, ready to turn the hunter-in-training into a _former_ hunter-in-training.

 _Gotta stop that Ursa first, no one in hell I can take just take a hit straight on even with my shield, so I have to deflect it rather than block it._ Jaune thought as the Ursa raised one of its paws and made to swipe at the defenseless Cardin. Cardin closed his eyes, believing it to be the end.

At the last moment, Jaune slid in right in front of Cardin and swiftly bashed the swipe away with his shield, then followed up with a slice to the Ursa's lower torso. The Ursa growled at the insult and lashed out with a sweeping attack, Jaune barely brought his shield up in time but the power of the strike sent him careening to one side, he grunted in pain as he landed on his backside and looked up just in time for the Ursa to charge right at him with both paws raised.

"Oh crap." Jaune muttered, and all of a sudden time seemed to slow for a moment, and suddenly Jaune felt himself getting pulled away by something, like during his fight with Cardin his body began moving off its own accord. As the Grimm approached, Jaune found himself not in Forever Fall, but on a strange dilapidated street of ruins. Another Ursa, similar to the one he was facing, was charging at him.

 _It's much larger than you and it can't move or turn as quickly, calculate its speed, move at the last second, let it overextend itself in its attack, counterattack swiftly, force an opening in its defenses, then take it down and target its head…_

 _Aim for a killing blow._

Five simple words.

Jaune rolled out of the way and into a crouch at the last second as the Ursa came down right where he had been. As it tried to turn towards him he slashed its flank twice, once downwards and the second time upwards. The Grimm roared in pain and reared back on its hind limbs, exposing its entire torso to the hunter-in-training/prince-in-hiding.

Jaune saw the opening and took a flying leap at the Ursa and stabbed his sword right through the Grimm just below its neck as it reared up and roared in pain, it stumbled backwards and stood up straight as it struggled to grab Jaune. Jaune held firm onto the large Grimm, pulled out his sword and stabbed again, another mighty roar and the Grimm fell backwards onto its back. Wasting no time, Jaune tore the sword out and with both hands, rammed it right through the Ursa's head, with that finishing move the Ursa went limp and started disintegrating slowly.

And then Jaune was back in Forever Fall forest as the Ursa began emitting the usual wisps of black smoke to signify that it was well and truly dead. He stood up and got off the dead Grimm shakily, his head was starting to ache again as he blinked and tried to clear the last pieces of the vision from his eyes.

"Another vision again, maybe it only activates when I'm in danger?" Jaune held his head in his hands and rubbed his forehead to try and soothe the pounding that was beginning to make itself known in his head, at that moment he heard a loud thump sound.

Jaune looked over just in time to see Pyrrha finish the other Ursa, which fell to the ground with its head having been cleanly sliced off.

"That was gruesome." He said as he sheathed his sword.

"Says the man who just stabbed his 'pointy thing' right through the head of a Grimm, compared to you mine is clean." Pyrrha smirked.

"Well yeah but…" Jaune scratched his head before conceding the point, "You know what you're probably right." He laughed in agreement, "and that leaves us just one last thing to take care off." So saying he turned to regard the person who had started the whole mess and began walking up to him slowly with a determined expression.

" _Cardin_." Jaune almost spat with disgust as he approached the person in question on the ground.

"Jaune, thanks for the save, I wouldn't have-" Cardin was cutoff when Jaune held his sword's point at his throat, "w-what're you…?"

"I am severely allergic to red sap, so I will consider this an equalizer after I almost killed you," Jaune stated calmly, "on the other hand you targeted and hurt my own friends with the sap, so now I consider it as you owing me one." Jaune tilted his head slightly.

"It's fine if you hurt me, kick me, hit me, spit on me, I can just brush it off, but hurting my friends is an _unacceptable_ course of action, you would do well to remember it." Jaune continued in a deadpan voice as he let the blade touch Cardin's skin before he pulled it back and locked it back onto his belt.

"Let's go Pyrrha, I've had enough of this place for one day." Jaune stuffed his hands into his pockets and stalked off. Pyrrha directed one last angry glare at Cardin before she sheathed her own weapons and followed after him.

"Are you alright Jaune?" Pyrrha asked.

"Are you my mother or something?" Jaune weakly attempted to joke, he was replied with a hit on his arm.

"I thought you were going to die for a moment there!" Pyrrha exclaimed, and before Jaune could say anything she was already continuing, "But next thing I know you dodge the attack, perform a counterattack and finish it on your own, if you can react to an attack that fast why didn't you just dodge the first one? You didn't need to wait for it to hit you and endanger yourself like that."

"Well…" Jaune scratched his head and took a deep breath, "remember that thing during my match with Cardin?" Pyrrha's eyes went wide, "Yeah it happened again, I think it only activates when I get hurt badly for some reason, so maybe it's a defense mechanism of some sort that activates to allow me to counterattack when I'm down."

Pyrrha looked thoughtful, "that's a really risky semblance, what if the first attack is all that's needed to…to _kill_ you." Pyrrha swallowed and forced out the last part.

"Yeah well I guess there's that, hopefully I can figure out how to activate it without having to be turned into Grimm food first… _or worse._ " Jaune shrugged, and then a thought occurred to him as he stopped and unsheathed Crocea Mors and held it up, watching the sun glint of the blade.

"Something happen to your sword?" Pyrrha lifted an eyebrow.

"Funny, I'm not really all that used to the sword and shield style, I've always found myself more comfortable with the two-handed style of swordsmanship," Jaune paused to admire the sword as he brought it down and fingered the blade gingerly with one hand, "but in that moment, I didn't feel any discomfort at all, in fact it felt almost… _right?_ Is that the word for it? Like the most natural thing in the world." Jaune made a few swings and twirls, testing the sword feel.

"Well if you're looking to switch styles I can help out with that." Pyrrha said eagerly with a grin.

"Yeah, just give me a bit of space first," Pyrrha shifted away as Jaune spied a rather thick branch hanging above him, he gripped the sword and made a powerful downward strike, followed by an upward one.

The branch fell off into two parts.

"Wow I don't think I ever noticed it before since I always use it with the blade sheathe, but this is really sharp." Jaune gripped the blade with his hand tightly and immediately drew it back with a short gasp of pain.

"Jaune?!" Pyrrha rushed over and grabbed his hand.

"Owie, wow that…" Jaune looked at the palm of his own hand, while his aura was already sealing the wound and the pain was dissipating; the blade had cut right through the glove almost effortlessly with only pressure being applied and no slicing motion.

"That went right through your glove." Pyrrha completed his sentence for him, just as amazed.

"Guess I'd really better be careful where I swing this thing huh?" Jaune gave a few practice swings, the blade felt really light and agile in his hands, and every swing seemed on point and accurately made.

"Huh, maybe switching styles might not be such a bad idea." Pyrrha positively beamed at him when he said that. He sheathed his sword and continued moving, meeting up with the rest of the crew below the hill where Professor Goodwitch was delivering a stinging scolding towards RDL, she blanched a little when she saw Jaune and Pyrrha walking up.

"Am I to assume that you are the reason Mr. Winchester is not with us?" She lifted an eyebrow.

"Don't worry Professor, he's right behind us." Jaune jerked his thumb behind him, and a few moments later Cardin appeared.

"It seems like trouble just has an interesting way of finding you Mr. Arc." Professor Goodwitch sighed.

"Well I can't help it now can I?" Jaune shrugged and made his way back to his team.

"No…I suppose you can't" Glynda pinched the bridge of her nose and glared at CRDL.

"And as for you four…"

* * *

 **I shall leave you to your imagination as to what happens to CRDL considering they potentially became a threat to Beacon's funding.**

 **Next few chapters will likely be significantly shorter, and this chapter is already shorter than the others, on the other hand I have a fairly long omake planned for this chapter, so just sit back and enjoy harem antics, some steamy things, and Prince Charming here.**

 **Now when it comes to Harem fics, they're inherently cracky, so why not go all the way, don't just have females falling all over Jaune because he does things like massages and hairdressing and forgets to shave and wears spectacles, why not have Jaune do something...**

 **A little…**

 **More…**

 ** _Risqué_**

 **The title probably isn't what you're thinking off, but a person with an _assassin's killing intent_ might know.**

* * *

 **15-hit critical combo**

"You know you and me could go places Jaune, special places…" Yang placed her hands on her hips and swayed them a little while smirking as she leaned over a sitting Jaune in the cafeteria.

Pyrrha ground her teeth and tried her best to ignore the sight, the bending of her fork and spoon were clear indicators of her feelings though.

Jaune sighed and got out of his seat and stood straight up to face Yang with a smirk on his face, Yang took a small step back and folded her arms under her chest.

"What's the matter Jaune-y? Not used to-mmmphhh!" Yang was cut off when Jaune slid his arms around her and pulled her in for a deep kiss.

Everyone blanched at the sight as Yang's hair lit up and started standing up, Jaune pulled back after a few seconds and grinned while Yang was blushing and looking uncharacteristically shy.

"Well Ms. Xiao Long, before you try to date me, let's see if you can handle me first." He leaned down and whispered into her ear seductively, Yang shivered as Jaune pulled her in and did a twirl towards the center of the dining hall. In full view of the entire hall, he pressed his lips onto Yang's.

Yang tried to push back and assert herself on some level; but she was completely overcome by Jaune when he pushed his tongue right past her mouth and started flicking it in her mouth. Her hair lit up and became a raging inferno that damn near reached the ceiling.

 _Once,_ Jaune dragged his tongue along hers.

 _Twice,_ He flicked it.

 _Thrice,_ Across the roof of her mouth…

…

 _Fifteen,_ Jaune finally pulled back to catch his breath as he released Yang, who twirled round and round with her eyes rolled into the back of her head, Ruby raced over to her and grabbed her.

"Yang? Yang?! Speak to me Yang!" Ruby shook her dazed and completely out of it sister.

"Holy crap Ruby…" Yang leaned her forehead on Ruby's shoulder and whispered, "I think I just…wet myself." And so saying she unceremoniously fell back onto the floor in a daze with drool coming out of her mouth.

"NNNOOO SIS! WAKE UP SIS!" Ruby cried out.

"You monster! Have you no shame?! How dare you just up and do that to another girl!" Weiss Schnee was utterly outraged, but even she could not help but turn a light pink and wonder at how mesmerizing the kiss must have been for Yang to have reacted like that.

"No shame? Why Ms. Schnee I do believe I'm _utterly shameless,_ but perhaps you'd like some…personal private lessons on shamelessness?" Jaune began approaching her with a dangerous smirk on his face, before he could get any closer, he was suddenly grabbed and pushed with his back onto the table by a rather hungry looking Blake with a cat smile on her face.

"Blake? What're you-" Jaune was cutoff when the cat summarily slammed her lips right onto his own lips, her tongue trying to force its way into his mouth.

 _God she tastes like…surprisingly high-quality salmon? Well I don't mind…_ Jaune thought with a snicker, but before he could push into the kiss Blake was pulled off with a loud yelp and a hiss, and Jaune was now face-to-face with a very angry looking Pyrrha.

"Oh hey Pyrrha." Was all Jaune got out before the crimson champion yanked him right off the table and crashed her lips into his while spinning him around with an aggression built from years of competition.

 _Whoa, apples and cinnamon, it fits her like a tight rubber glove._ Jaune grinned as he continued the spin…and spun them right into a wall, pinning Pyrrha up against it as Jaune opened his mouth and allowed their tongues to dance with each other. Where Pyrrha had locked her arms behind Jaune's neck, Jaune ran his hands up and down her sides and back, admiring the curves of her body and eliciting several sharp moans from his partner who began bringing up one of her legs to rest on his waist as he pushed her up to level with him on her toes.

He broke off with a gasp of air, Pyrrha was flushing a bright red and gasping for air herself with a glazed expression in her eyes and feeling _really_ hot under her clothing, Jaune leaned forward and touched his forehead to hers.

"Sorry Pyrrha, but it's time to finish this." He smirked again; Pyrrha's eyes went wide before Jaune took the lead, pushing his tongue deep into her mouth, touching all the most sensitive spots. He grabbed both of Pyrrha's flailing arms and forced them against the wall as he pressed his body up against hers, prompting a muffled squeal.

Mere seconds later he released her and stepped away, the crimson champion slid down the wall onto her butt, the same dazed expression on her face as she leaned against the wall for support.

"So who's next?" Jaune turned and asked as he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and was immediately grabbed by a rather cross Blake.

"I don't like interruptions." She hissed and glared at him.

"Then let's continue where we left off little kitty." Jaune gave her his most seductive smile, and then he swept her up bridal style as she limp, and then he dropped her on top of the table, raised both her arms above her head and viciously made out with her. Blake locked both of her legs around his waist and arched her back to press her chest against his; Jaune removed his hand from her arms to steady himself allowing Blake to run her own hands through his hair.

 _Alright, one more time and…_ Jaune pulled back just a little to take a breath, and then immediately dived back down, leaving Blake struggling against him as he inhaled out her lungs before completely pulling back, leaving Blake splayed out on top of the table gasping and heaving.

By this point, Jaune was completely drunk on his own feelings and hormones, when he turned to the others, Ruby, Weiss and Nora were all hiding behind a very nervous-looking Ren.

"Protect us Ren!" Nora cried out.

"You won't take us like you took them!" Weiss shouted while shaking her fist.

"That's perfectly alright," Jaune nodded, "99% need not apply." _Unfortunately for you Ms. Schnee, I know you can never back down from a challenge like that._

"What did you say?! You dare insinuate that I can't handle you?" Weiss suddenly stepped out from behind Ren.

"Well of course! If you could then why don't you-" Jaune was interrupted when Weiss charged over with a dark glare on her face and flung herself at him.

Unfortunately Weiss really did not last any longer than any of them, in fact she probably lasted the shortest as she more or less fainted the instant Jaune started really pushing her, Nora took the chance to grab Ren and make a run for it, leaving Ruby all alone to face Jaune. Nearly everyone else had already left in a hurry, the females because they did not feel like being on the receiving end, and the males out of shame and embarrassment.

So that left Ruby standing alone trembling as Jaune walked up to her, with Yang on the floor, Pyrrha against the wall, Blake all over the table and Weiss… _somewhere_ …Ruby shut her eyes and lifted her head, preparing for the inevitable kiss of death.

She was surprised when she was not roughly pushed or pulled in any way, instead she felt a strange gentle touch on her lips and a soft ruffling of her hair. When Jaune finally leaned in there was little energy, but it was rather passionate and Ruby found herself leaning more and more into the kiss, until finally they broke apart, both blushing madly.

"W-what was that?" Ruby asked as she wiped her mouth, Jaune laughed and bumped his forehead into hers.

"It wouldn't do to defile such a sweet rose now would it." Jaune smiled brightly.

* * *

 **Alternate titles include: Kiss of death, goodnight awoken beauty, and assassination kiss.**

 **As always, all your reviews, faves and follows are deeply appreciated.**


	8. Class is in Session

**So I just wanted to clarify in case anyone made the same mistake, Duke Jean and Prince Jean/Jaune are two different people, the Duke is the Prince's ancestor.**

 **Some of your reviews have reflected a tiny fear of mine, and that is that whatever omake I can pull out from the depths of my mind is going to be more popular and talked about than whatever is in the main story.**

 **Maybe I should just resort to taking requests for specific omakes and abandon the story?**

 **Nah just kidding.**

 **This chapter is mostly an exposition dump on the AU, where Jaune comes from and stuff. Also a bit of backstory.**

* * *

"Have you guys heard? I have it on good authority that the Crown Prince himself might be attending the Vytal tournament as its guest-of-honor!" Weiss excitedly explained as Teams RWBY and JNPR walked to their first class of the day.

 _Wait a minute, I haven't heard about that._ Jaune furrowed his brow, _I'd better ask uncle about it later._

"No one really cares Weiss, except for you I guess." Yang rolled her eyes.

"What! How can you say that? They're the last living actual royal family around! And-"

"And also mostly irrelevant, seriously I bet all they do is laze around the whole day eating cupcakes and drinking tea or something." Yang waved her hands in dismissal.

Jaune bit back a terse and snarky remark at that, and looked away, trying his best not to pay any attention to their banter, he was still in hiding thanks to the attack and any kind of mention of his about the royal family could blow that cover wide open. So he swallowed his pride and kept his mouth shut.

 _One of these days…_ He thought as he entered the classroom and settled himself down.

"Well good morning class, how are we all doing today? Fine I hope? Well let's get down to business then." Professor Oobleck entered the class like a gust of wind.

"I have a special topic in mind for all of you today, I think at least some of us have heard the rumors that the Crown Prince of Vale himself might be coming as a representative of the Royal family to the Vytal tournament later this year, so with that in mind I've decided that today we can delve into a subject that ought to hold special meaning for Valeans. I'm talking of course, about the House of Vale, _the_ Royal family and our original rulers." He rattled off while sparing a few glances at Jaune.

 _Great, here it comes._ Jaune thought as the professor zipped back and forth.

"So let's start off with something simple, here's a question for all of you, who here can name me the four primary royal enclaves, or as they're sometimes known, 'Special Adminstrative Regions of Vale'?" He asked.

Weiss immediately put her hand up, "You have the floor Ms. Schnee." Oobleck nodded.

"They are the city and region of Armorica, the island of Avalon, Mt. Kiffhaus and the town of Frostriver." She answered.

"Perfect answer Ms. Schnee! These four enclaves are the remainders of the territories held by the old Royal family before the Vale Succession War, unlike Vale city and most of the various outlying towns and villages, these territories are directly governed by the Royal family with the King and Queen at their head in Avalon." Oobleck explained as he jotted down notes over the board.

"Despite being well-known themselves as the former rulers of the kingdom of Vale before the Vale Succession War, little is known about these enclaves themselves, what is their economy like? How do they defend themselves from the Grimm? What does the Royal family do in their free time? But most important of all…" He raised his voice, gave a serious look and paused to let the tension build a little.

Everyone could tell the seriousness in his voice and waited.

And waited…

And waited some more…

And then finally the professor spoke

"How would one gain access to the Royal Archives?" A groan was let out as everyone deflated.

"Now you may think this all rather trite, but I assure you that the Royal Archives are not a joke ladies and gentlemen! What little that outsiders have been allowed to plumb of it would make most people salivate with curiosity! We're talking ancient history ladies and gentlemen, the House of Vale is one of the oldest continuing houses where the other kingdom's own have disappeared into complete obscurity, and also the Archives contain the sum accumulated knowledge of generations going back to far before the Great War" Oobleck actually took a breath, and to everyone's surprise, started pacing back and forth.

"Just _imagine_ the possibilities, these days I doubt any single one of us could imagine having to face the Grimm without the usage of dust and the myriad shifting weapons that we have, yet they _must_ have found a way to deal with the Grimm, else we wouldn't even be around to deal with them now would we?" Oobleck straightened his glasses which had gone crooked from his pacing about.

"But instead of endlessly speculating and guessing about the royal enclaves, why don't we have someone who's actually _from_ one of these places tell us more about them? I'm sure he could enlighten us far more than any of us ever could." A wicked gleam appeared in Oobleck's eyes.

 _Oh no, don't tell me…_ Jaune blanched.

"You have the floor Mr. Arc," Oobleck smiled as he turned to the person in question and suddenly all eyes in the room were on Jaune, even his partner looked mildly astonished at the revelation.

"Er…where should I start?" Jaune scratched his head awkwardly.

"Wherever you feel most appropriate Mr. Arc."

"Ok…so the place that I come from is Armorica, it's governed by the last Duke of Vale the duke of Armorica, in the aftermath of the Vale Succession War, the reigning duke of the time wanted to install the rightful king back on the throne. However the other dukes at the time were fearful of the power that the king wielded in the aftermath of the black king's reign, and so voted to strip all powers from the king and leave him a figurehead while dividing up the power amongst themselves, becoming the council of Vale. The duke of Armorica was outraged by this, but there was nothing he could do against all of them so he took the royal family and whoever would follow him back to this own land and set up the first of the special administrative regions in Armorica." Jaune took a breath before he continued.

"An intriguing explanation Mr. Arc, but I don't think the other nobles appreciated having such an independent entity making his own rules." Oobleck nodded.

"They didn't, but the Duke of Armorica was a war hero who had led the loyalists to victory time and time again, it was his intervention that turned the siege of Corlayn castle and in doing so, the war. So when he demanded concessions the other nobles were forced to comply in turn."

"Very interesting, but what happened after that?"

"Well the entire region needed several years to rebuild, the cost of the war and the devastation were causing Grimm hordes to appear all over the place. It took years before the duke was able to pacify his own region and begin to properly settle the area, it would take a further decade before a relative peace could be established. It was during this time that the other three Royal Enclaves were founded, the island of Avalon was where the Royal family was originally evacuated to off the coast of Armorica, Mount Kiffhaus to the south was created as a mountaintop stronghold and dust mine in case of a crisis, Frostriver to the north was the first new settlement created by the Crown of the time in the aftermath of the pacification." By this point in time, the attention of the entire class was firmly locked onto the hunter-in-training/prince-in-hiding.

"I should clarify to the class at this point that there is a difference between the Royal family and the Duke of Armorica's family, the Royal family is made up of the members related to the king and queen by blood, the Duke of Armorica's family is merely nobility as opposed to royalty."

"Yes, though the distinction was recently erased, the current duke of Armorica, Jacques married Princess Viola, the eldest daughter of the reigning king and queen. The story is that before he was the duke, Jacques attended this very academy in hiding at the same time as Princess Viola was training to be a pilot. They met when she pulled him and his team out of a rough stop and saved their lives, and the rest as they say, is history."

"Hm, well that is quite the story, but why don't you tell us about life in Armorica itself Jaune?" Oobleck asked.

"Life can be harsh, no doubt about it, cut off from the support of the other kingdoms we've been forced to make do with what we have, rather than a large standing army all people in the royal enclaves are required to serve between two and three years of military service, a draft essentially-"

"Just a moment Jaune, _all_ of them?"

"Yes, male and female, Faunus or human, cityfolk, farmers and countrymen, everyone has to serve, usually the call-up comes around when you're eighteen or so, six months of basic, the rest of the time spent manning barricades and clearing out Grimm infestations before they get too big to handle." Jaune explained, "I would've gone in myself about a year from now if I had not come to Beacon."

"You mentioned Faunus just now, how are Faunus treated in the Royal enclaves?" A quick glance to the side and Jaune realized that Blake looked extra attentive, her bow even twitched.

 _My next words are going to forever determine my relationship with her aren't they?_ Jaune thought for a moment before coming up with his answer.

"Like people of course, it's a lot harder to discriminate when your lives depend on working together successfully especially during the short excursions to clear Grimm out. I wouldn't go so far as to say there's no discrimination, but I would definitely say that Faunus are treated better and can be more open about themselves compared to other places. Bonds forged through the heat of battle are the strongest bonds of all after all." Jaune allowed himself a small smile of pride, it was the one thing that _most_ , if not _all_ people of the Royal enclaves could be _somewhat_ proud off, he'd seen more than a few members of the Royal Legion happily drinking and making merry with one another Faunus or no.

He gave a glance at Blake, and she seemed to nod in approval.

"Hmph, and I thought the Royal family were just interested in having a few more guard dogs around." Cardin rolled his eyes.

"I should cut your tongue off for that level of disrespect Cardin." Jaune turned and directed a glare at the person in question, Cardin shifted a little uneasily and swallowed hard under the glare.

Jaune scoffed, "Nah, they don't do that anymore," He smirked before adding, "I think."

"That aside, where does the Royal Legion fit in all of this?" Oobleck continued as he directed a sharp glance as both.

"It's the thousand-man strong personal bodyguard of the Royal family, it's a standing army dedicated solely to the protection of the Royal Family, besides that though they tend deploy and venture further from the enclaves then the militia do, usually scouting out a new area to settle."

"Well that's all very interesting, but back to the main question: how does one gain access to the royal archives?"

"It's not too difficult; you just need a written permission from his or her majesty themselves, to get it you just need a really good reason to do so explained in about a thousand words, I myself have often wondered why they don't open it up, the wealth of information contained within is staggering." Jaune shrugged.

 _Or you could be a member of the royal family, in which case you have free access anytime, every time, rain or shine, but I'm not about to tell him that._ Jaune thought.

As the lesson wore on, Oobleck continued to ply Jaune with questions, Jaune answered each in turn as best as he could, dodging all the little pointed edges that the Professor occasionally put into his questions in order to rile up and mildly disturb and distract the young prince.

"Now for your homework, I'm going to be nice and give you a bit of leeway, an essay about the Royal enclaves; it can be on any topic, argumentative, discursive, composition, I'll expect it to be in on your next lesson. Dismissed!" Oobleck waved his hand.

"I didn't know you came from Armorica Jaune." Pyrrha remarked as they exited the classroom.

"Well I never felt the need to tell you." Jaune merely shrugged, "why is there something you wish to know?"

"I'm just glad I know a bit more about you, you don't talk much about yourself you know." Pyrrha smiled.

"I'd talk if there was something I thought was worth mentioning, but most of my life has been rather dreary and dull, I doubt you want to hear much of it." Jaune shrugged, "it's only really become exciting as of late, thanks to all of you."

"Aw, is perm _arc_ frost starting to melt a little?" Yang gave a cocky smile and raised an eyebrow.

"Boo!" Nora jeered loudly, "but fearless leader Jaune! Have you seen the Queen herself? What's she like? Does she live in a great big castle? I best she does! And can I become a queen like her?" She rattled off while giving Jaune a grin and tugging ferociously at his sleeve.

"Nora, let go of Jaune." Ren firmly stated as he gently pried her off his leader.

"No fair!" Nora stuck her tongue out.

"Well to answer your question, yes I have seen the queen a few times, usually with one of her entourages, but they don't usually appear in public very often, the royal palace in Avalon is where they spend most of their time, perhaps one day I can take you there if you wish." Jaune laughed and smiled at the hyper Valkyrie.

"Cool! You'd do that?" Nora's eyes were sparkling.

"Why not? You want to see what it takes to be queen of the castle before becoming one yourself don't you? Although there is no castle in Avalon, you can still see the palace." Jaune nodded.

"Awesome! You're the best fearless leader!" Nora cheered and hugged Jaune so tightly he began gasping for air.

"Alright Nora that's enough, let go of Jaune." Pyrrha firmly stated with a slight scowl as she and Ren tried to pry the hyper Valkyrie off of their leader.

"NEVER! Jaune is the bestest leader EVER!" Nora hollered out as she clung to Jaune tightly.

"Could we please just go ahead to the dining hall for lunch before something blows up?" Weiss growled irritably.

And so the gang carried on their way, lunch was quiet…well it _would have been_ quiet… _mostly_ quiet at least if it were not for Nora endlessly going on about Jaune and Armorica.

"It must be so cool living in a castle together with the queen! I mean there must be a whole army of servants and stuff to cater to your every whim like…" And at some point in her long winded sentences about Jaune and the Royal enclaves, she had somehow come to the conclusion that Jaune lived in the same castle as the queen did, this even though Jaune had specified that the king and queen lived in a palace rather than a castle.

"The king and queen don't live in a castle, the only castle is the one at Mount Kiffhaus, and _real_ castles are cold, dark and damp places anyway, they're designed to keep an enemy at bay while providing shelter after all, not be comfortable places to live in since that's just the secondary purpose." He had said, she had not really paid any attention to that though, being more focused on the prospect of becoming an actual queen.

"I don't think you can become the queen of the castle yet Nora, you'd have to usurp the current queen first right Jaune?" Ren nodded.

"Yeah, and I don't think she'll just hand power over willingly like that, even if it is just a ceremonial power of sorts." Jaune agreed.

"Aww…" Nora looked crestfallen before she suddenly perked up, "do you think I could be queen if I married a prince first and became a princess?"

Jaune nearly choked, "Er…I suppose you could, where would you find a prince though?" He inquired with a forced smile.

"Hm that's a good question," Nora tapped her head and thought about it for a moment before her eyes brightened considerably.

"You could be the prince Jauney!" She cheered, Jaune blanched and choked when she said that, spilling his tea all over his lap as he went into a hard coughing fit, Pyrrha rubbed his back soothingly while shooting a look at Nora.

As Jaune recovered he swallowed hard, took a deep breath and tried to maintain his composure with a weak smile, "I'm…ah…not a prince Nora." He said slowly.

"Really? Maybe you're secretly a prince hiding out from enemies trying to kill you!" Nora's voice was barely a whisper; Jaune stared at her like she had grown two heads.

 _Yeah that's…no…that's just pure coincidence…isn't it? Nora is just being Nora right?_ Jaune remained silent for a moment as he tried to gather his thoughts together to form a coherent line of speech.

"I'm…not a prince Nora, _really_ ," Jaune explained, "after….certain events two years ago, the Royal Family mostly went into hiding, they don't appear in public anymore like they used to unfortunately." He finished.

"Why? What happened two years ago?" Ruby asked as she munched on a cookie.

Jaune stopped right there as the memories flooded back, watching his uncle crying as he carried his wife from the rubble. A horde of Grimm attacking and tearing apart screaming civilians, gunfire echoing all around as he tried to find a place to hide, the blood-red emblem, Ash fighting off…someone, his younger sister Elizabeth screaming in terror as…

Jaune gasped as he returned to the real world, as the memories came back, he found himself shaking and breathing heavily.

"Jaune?! What's wrong?" Pyrrha placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him a worried look.

"I…I can't…" Jaune stuttered, and then he bit back a loud breath and spoke, "Excuse me, I have to…" Without waiting for anyone else he got up from the table and darted out of the dining hall, he ran and ran, past confused students and staff. Ran until he collapsed against a wall gasping, he banged his head against a wall, trying to force the images from his mind.

"Jaune!" Pyrrha grabbed onto him and pulled him back, having chased him all the way from the dining hall, Jaune was hyperventilating badly and breaking out in a cold sweat. He collapsed with his back against the wall as Pyrrha tried to calm him down.

"Jaune whatever it was, it wasn't real! You're here now with me! Stay with me Jaune!" Pyrrha gripped the front of his shirt tightly with one hand while the other held his hand as Jaune fought to gain control of his breathing. Unfortunately for him, he knew it was all too real, unlike the visions that he had been experiencing, he had actually been there.

"Breathe Jaune, just breathe normally, its fine, you're safe now, you're in Beacon Academy." Pyrrha grabbed his shoulders and looked right into his eyes as Jaune grit his teeth and took several sharp and deep breaths.

 _Inhale, count to ten, exhale, count to ten, inhale, count to ten, exhale_ Jaune thought and followed through, slowly bringing his breathing down, in the meantime, the rest of Teams RWBY and JNPR had caught up at a running pace.

"Jaune are you alright?! I-I didn't mean to…" Ruby stuttered and fidgeted nervously when she reached him.

"It's ok!" Jaune nearly shouted as he blinked rapidly and finally slowed his breathing to normal and slumped against the wall, "It's ok…" He gave one final gasp before he squeezed his eyes shut, banished the last memories with a single deep breath, and turned to look at the others, who were all in varying states of worry.

"What's wrong with fearless leader?" Nora asked with wide eyes.

"I…just…remembered something awful, that's all." Jaune shook his head and stood up shakily.

"Jaune I'm really sorry, I didn't know it-" Jaune cut Ruby off by raising his hand.

"That's right Ruby, you _didn't know_ , I can't fault you for something you didn't know beforehand, so just take it easy. Besides, I should probably apologize for scaring all of you like that." Jaune smiled.

"Yeah you better," Yang suddenly hooked her arm around Jaune's neck and brought him down to give him a noogie with her other hand, "I thought I was about to lose my fellow blonde pun-ddy there." She growled playfully.

"I get it Yang! I get it!" Jaune groaned in pain and pushed her away while smirking.

"Damn straight." Yang grinned and folded her arms.

"So are you going to explain what happened back there?" Weiss gave him an inquisitive look.

And Jaune's mood visibly shifted in that instant.

"I'd…" Jaune forced back a glare, "rather not talk about it." That raised eyebrows all around.

"Jaune, you don't need to-" Pyrrha started and tried to reach for Jaune but was immediately cut off.

"I said I don't want to talk about it, and that's final." Jaune gave them all a look before walking away.

"Sheesh, talk about mood swinging." Yang rolled her eyes.

"He did just have a major panic attack," All eyes turned to Blake who merely shrugged, "I doubt if he would want to talk about something as serious as that, I suggest we just leave him be."

Pyrrha looked like she wanted to say something, but she kept her mouth closed.

Later on, after classes had ended normally, she and Jaune found themselves in the training room facing each other.

"So…about that holding-by-the-blade technique…" Pyrrha trailed off, Jaune looked rather surprised.

"You want to try it now?" Jaune raised an eyebrow.

"Well…I've never seen it before so…yes?" Pyrrha tried meekly.

"Huh, I'm not my master, but I suppose I could show you the concept at least," Jaune shrugged, "could you show me your sword?"

Pyrrha handed Milo to Jaune, who gave it a few practice swings and movements.

"I don't think such a technique is necessary for you though, or should be performed anyway; your sword's a lot shorter than mine, there's also the fact that it's a lot lighter, and it lacks a guard," Jaune examined Milo, "the point of having a longer sword is for me to reach out and hit the opponent before they can hit me."

"On the other hand, the shorter sword gives me a greater amount of control with just one hand, and with the shield makes for a balance of offense and defense." Pyrrha responded, "It's also a gun so I have a long range option if I need it."

"Yes I understand but since I lack a fancy mecha-shifting weapon let's stick to our basics ok?" Jaune rolled his eyes.

"I've always meant to ask but why didn't you get a ranged weapon Jaune? It certainly opens up more avenues of attack, plus it means you can stay out of the Grimm's way and still hit them if you need to." Pyrrha asked.

"Eh, I was never very good at it, couldn't ever really get the hang of archery, or shooting for that matter, so my master told me to just stick with a sword and be done with it, no need to deal with external factors like wind speed, distance and bullet drop and all that stuff." Jaune shook his head, "I'm not a dust user either, so I've been focusing purely on swordsmanship for all my training."

"I see, still you should try to get a ranged weapon at some point, it'll increase your arsenal."

"I'll work on it some other time, but right now, why don't we get down to business?" He passed Milo back and held Crocea Mors in its blade-sheathe at his shoulder, Pyrrha nodded.

"So it's really quite simple, grip the sword by its blade, hold it firmly, and hit the enemy with the handle." Jaune demonstrated by holding Crocea Mors by its blade and giving a few swings.

"So what are the uses of this technique again?"

"It's primarily an anti-armor technique in the event your sword is unable to cut through armor. However there are other uses as well, as you saw in my fight with Cardin, I used the guard of the sword to hook onto his weapon and pull it away from him, leaving him open for a counterattack." Jaune explained, Pyrrha nodded with a grunt of understanding, Jaune continued explaining.

"Of course there is another method, instead of grabbing the blade with both hands," Jaune turned Crocea Mors around to grip it normally, "I can instead just grab it with one hand," He reached over to place one hand on the blade, "and thrust it like a spear."

"That…somehow looks even more ridiculous." Pyrrha stared at him.

"Yeah it's another anti-armor technique, you basically use your other hand to give yourself more control of the blade and thrust into weak spots, gaps in armor and things like that, of course like you probably also saw in my fight with Cardin." Jaune gripped his sword in reverse. "I can also use it to give more control to a slashing attack."

Pyrrha did not look particularly convinced, and then she had a brainwave.

"Why don't you guide me Jaune? I'm not really sure about this…" Pyrrha gave a skeptical look, but inwardly she was grinning at her plan.

"Well…ok…" Jaune raised an eyebrow as he walked over to Pyrrha.

"So…since Milo is so short, I think you can just use it in a one-handed way like a Warhammer or mace, have you ever used a Warhammer or a mace?"

"Well I tried both when I was starting out but I didn't like the style and feel so I dropped it very shortly afterwards."

"Ok…so pass me Milo for a moment," Pyrrha did so, and then to her surprise Jaune took her hand, and pressed it on the blade.

"J-Jaune?!" She squeaked as Jaune wrapped her fingers around the blade, she had planned for a little ''hands-on experience" with Jaune, but even though she was wearing long cut-off sleeves she could feel the edge biting into her skin, it made for a most unpleasant sensation.

"Just hold it firmly like I told you and it won't slip and slide and cut your fingers off." Jaune told her. For Pyrrha, Jaune holding her hand in any other situation would have drawn an even more flustered reaction from her, thankfully the discomfort of the biting blade ensured that she remained focused on it.

"Since the weight is concentrated away from your hand, it's better to just flow and follow through your attacks rather than stop halfway. Ok, so try hitting me." Jaune let go of Pyrrha's hand, expanded his shield and held it out in front of him. Pyrrha gripped Milo as hard as she thought she could before it started cutting her and slammed it on Jaune's shield several times, each hit harder than the last.

"Ok, I think I'm getting the hang of this, although I still don't see the point really." Pyrrha sighed as she switched the sword back, "wanna do some sparring?" She asked.

"Well…ok I guess? Would be good for me to try out something new."

Well of course when Jaune had meant something new, he had meant 'new' in the sense of trying to discover what new techniques he could use with a sword and shield that he had not previously learnt during his time spent training with the Royal Legion wherein he had focused almost exclusively on two-handed techniques with only a marginal amount of time spent on using a sword and shield.

He did not mean 'new' in the sense of, learning new ways to hit the ground as Pyrrha basically threw him about the arena with impunity.

Well she was not the 'invincible girl' for nothing anyway.

Despite this though, he could feel himself getting…sharper? Was that the term for it? It felt as though he was once again being moved like a puppet, although the movements were more subtle than before, he felt as though he could feel every strike made, every parry and block as though sword and shield contacted each other. He had little time to ponder it though as he brought his shield up just in time to block a blow and then swung his sword to clash with a second blow, but when he pulled back…

He found himself being pulled to the floor along with Pyrrha.

The blades of Crocea Mors and Milo were stuck together at the point of contact.

"Uh…" Jaune exchanged a glance with Pyrrha, who merely shrugged in response, "is that your polarity?" Jaune asked.

Pyrrha frowned as she regarded the two blades stuck together, "…No, I'm not doing that…" She trailed off.

"Hang on a minute," Jaune gripped the handle tightly, "On three we'll pull it apart," Pyrrha nodded and gripped her own blade's handle, "three…two…one…pull!" With a mighty tug, the two blades came apart, as Jaune eyed his own blade for a moment; he was startled when Pyrrha gasped.

"Pyrrha? What's wrong?" Pyrrha was gently fingering Milo's blade in one hand.

"Jaune…your sword…it….well just see for yourself!" She held Milo up for him to see, Jaune's eyes widened.

At the point of contact where the two swords had meant, Milo had a rather large cut that ran through perhaps a fifth of the blade. Jaune checked his own sword, but Crocea Mors had nary a scratch on it. Perhaps there might have been a minor nick and a abrasion where the blades had met each other, but otherwise it seemed as flush and edgy as it had always been, at least as far as Jaune knew.

"Uh…well…so what now?" Jaune asked even as Pyrrha looked rather annoyed.

"I'm quite certain I've been maintaining it at peak levels," she sighed after a moment, "I guess that's it for tonight, I'm going to have to get this looked at in the Armory tomorrow."

"Well I guess I should be thankful for that since you can't wipe the floor with my ass now," Jaune chuckled lightly, "or my face for that matter." Pyrrha smiled encouragingly.

"You put up a pretty good fight there Jaune, even though your stance and footwork need improvement, I can tell you're a pretty experienced fighter." Pyrrha assured him.

"Really? This is seriously the first time in a long while that I've held Crocea Mors like this not counting our recent altercation in Forever Fall." Jaune raised a curious eyebrow.

"Is that so? And yet you were able to spot at least _some_ of the feints that I used, you were able to match my sword strikes on occasion, and you took advantage of the some of the openings I gave you."

"You flatter me Ms. Champion," Jaune gave a mocking bow, "but we should be heading back, not much else we can with your weapon like that."

Later, once they had back in their dorm, had changed up and were preparing to go to sleep. Jaune decided that now would be a good time to make a call, and so he put up his contacts list in his scroll, selected one and let it ring until someone picked it up.

"Hey uncle? Yeah this is Jaune…no no I'm fine everything's going along swimmingly here…yes I know but I wanted to ask if you were going to be the Vytal tournament's guest-of-honor?... What? But I don't need a…I-I see, I understand your concern but…of course…yes…when does _he_ get here?" Jaune sighed in resignation.

* * *

 **You came so close there Nora, so close...**

 **Wonder who Jaune is talking about? Probably some OC I have planned somewhere down the line.**

 **So we have Frostriver, Avalon, Armorica and Kiffhaus. Avalon needs no explanation, but who can tell me what the other three regions are based on/came from?**

 **I do have something special in mind for Crocea Mors sometime down the line, it won't show up for a while though that I can tell you.**

 **This omake is longer than usual as well, and also different in that you can consider it a canon omake, a little peak into the life of the young prince.**

 **Do enjoy.**

* * *

 **A Snake and a Butler**

"Good morning young master." Ash greeted the eleven year old Prince Jean as he woke up holding a tray with a teapot and teacup.

"The tea this morning is Earl Grey with a hint of milk and vanilla." He said as he sat the tray down and began pouring out the teapot into the cup. Meanwhile Jean was already getting dressed slowly from the clothes that had been hung beside his rather lavish bed.

" _Whoa_ this is really good." Jean smiled brightly as he sipped from the cup

"Of course, young prince, I have also taken the liberty of preparing those books which you have requested for your perusal, they are right there on your desk ready for you." He gestured to a desk across the room on which sat several rather thick books.

"Wow, thanks a lot Mr. Ash!"

"You humble me young prince, but perhaps you'd like to have breakfast first?" The snake butler smiled and led the way to the door.

"As long as Mr. Clove isn't cooking again." Jean shuddered a little.

"Rest assured young prince, I have already taken steps to remedy that…potential issue."

"Then lead the way Mr. Ash! To the breakfast table we go!" Jean grabbed the butler's hand eagerly; the Crown Prince's butler chuckled at the gesture as he led the young prince to the dining room.

"Just a moment young master, I'm sure your own sister would like to share in the delight of the first meal of the day?"

"Aww..." Jaune pouted, Ash smirked and patted his head.

"It's not nice to be selfish young master. Come, we will wake the young mistress together." Both set off, and entered the room right beside Jean's. It was similarly decorated, with the bed containing the sleeping form of Prince Jean's twin sister, Princess Jeanne of Armorica.

"Wake up sis!" Jean jumped on the bed and bounced on it beside his twin sibling, who growled in anger and rolled away.

"Five more minutes brother..." Jeanne growled and pulled the sheets over her head.

"Nope! Come on we have another big day ahead of us!" Jean began trying to pull his upset twin from the bed, Jeanne fought back by clinging steadfastly to the sheets, as though she were hanging from a cliff.

"Nooooo, don't leave me feather mattress of comfort." She groaned as she tumbled to the floor with Jean, Ash laughed as he watched the twins struggle to get up and fuss over each other.

"Why can't you just let me sleeeeep you big meanie." Jeanne growled as she repeatedly hit her brother's arm weakly.

"I won't let you sleep in sis." Jean folded his arms and nodded his head.

"If it helps you young mistress, I've already prepared breakfast. Waffles with your choice of honey, jam, chocolate sauce or syrup, with the addition of strawberries if you so wish." Ash explained.

"Yaaaay." Jeanne gave a sleepily enthusiastic voice and waved her arms.

"As long as Mr. Clove is not making breakfast..." Jean said as both twins winced at the mention of the name.

"Rest assured young master," Ash straightened his glasses on the bridge of his nose, "I have already taken steps to ensure that such is not so."

"Then lead the way Mr. Ash! Come on sis!" Jean pulled a sleepy Jeanne along who was still rubbing her eyes and yawning.

As they went, they passed by Felicia, who was standing on a stepladder wiping some windows.

"Good morning Ms. Felicia!" Jean waved excitedly.

"Good morning young master, mistress, how-" She turned, slipped and fell off the ladder and hit the ground, the ladder falling to the side with a loud crash and causing a bucket of water to spill everywhere.

Or at least that is what would have happened, if Ash had not caught the falling maid in his arms, kicked the ladder back into position and shifted the bucket of water so that it did not spill.

"Whoa." Both twins sounded out, though only Jean was wide-eyed.

"Watch where you step Felicia." Ash smiled gently as the cat maid pushed him away and straightened herself.

"You didn't see any of that." She stated firmly.

"Don't worry Ms. Felicia, Mr. Ash was way cool!" Jean grinned, eliciting an embarrassed blush and smile.

Moving on, they found Tsuki balancing a stack of plates while walking along.

"Morning Ms. Tsuki." Now it was Jeanne's turn, sounding more like a harsh hiss.

"Wah!" the dog maid was caught by surprise and tripped, sending plates crashing to the floor leaving broken ceramic all over the place.

Not really though as Ash skilfully caught her and redirected each of the plates so that they landed in a neat stack.

"Whoa." Both twins sounded out again.

"Be careful or where you're going Tsuki, carry fewer plates next time to make it easier." Ash smiled again as he let the dog maid down who was blushing profusely and stammering.

"S-sorry about that."

"Mr. Ash looked really good saving you." Jeanne deadpanned.

At the breakfast table, they were met by a grouchy Amethyst who clambered into her seat with a scowl on her face, Jean giggled while Jeanne managed to smirk.

"What's so funny?" Amethyst growled at the twins.

"Sorry Amy, it's just that you look..." Jean had to suppress a laugh

"Hilarious when you scowl like that." Jeanne finished.

"Breakfast is served." Ash entered the room carrying a covered tray and set it down gently on the table, and lifted the metal cover, revealing three plates of gleaming waffles and the appropriate condiments.

"Whoa." All three children went wide-eyed.

* * *

 **I imagine Ash is a lot like Sebastian Michaelis, except without the baggage of having strange supernatural faustian bargains or working as some black ops unit for the crown taking down things for the queen.**

 **It's a butler taking care of his young master, nothing more.**

 **At least I hope it is.**


	9. Ride of the Valkyrie

**AAAAUUUUUUGGGGGHHHH!**

 **That's my reaction to this thing that I might dare to call a chapter, it started as an idea to have both teams get together to do something fun and have some team bonding.**

 **It...**

 **It didn't really get there.**

 **Suffice to say, between running out of ideas, forcing in filler material and not being able to imagine the characters properly, this chapter went more or less nowhere.**

 **Unfortunately, I was loathe to completely start over since I didn't have anything else.**

 **So enjoy.**

* * *

The sun was beginning to rise over Beacon Academy as a new day began; students were beginning to rise and wake, gradually filling the halls with the sounds of…

"NNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" A certain hammer maiden's voice rang out, shattering the eardrums of anyone –in this case, her team- standing nearby and making the entirety of Beacon shake to its core. What you might ask, could the cause of this provocation? What could cause the normally cheery, bubbly and energetic Nora to burst out in such an intense expression of sorrow, pain and anger? Well the answer as it turns out, is pretty simple.

They ran out of pancakes.

The latest shipment of flour was arriving late, the net result of something involving a flock of nevermores, a few pieces of paper, a prank with some alcohol and maybe some lactose intolerance. But that was not the issue at the moment, the Grimm were not the problem at the moment, the chefs and the servers who manned the kitchen in the dining hall only _wished_ that was the problem they were facing.

Rather the current problem was a Nora that was clearly about to explode.

"IMPOSSIBLE!" Was the cry.

"UNACCEPTABLE!" Came the shout.

"INCONCEIVABLE!" Half-crazed yelling.

 _And I think I'm deaf now,_ Jaune thought, _I guess there_ are _somethings aura can't protect you from._

The server meanwhile, looked like he was about to crap his pants as he shook in fright at the thought of having to deal with a berserk Nora.

The rest of Team JNPR was debating internally whether or not they ought to intervene as Nora went straight to "Nuclear meltdown" with the knob ripped out.

A certain prince-in-hiding was able to make that decision first.

"Nora," He began slowly, the girl turned to face him and shot him a glare so dark Jaune froze for a moment, but proceeded on anyway, "Nora look, I know this is troubling-"

"TROUBLING?! This is the troubling! These are the End Times leader! A world with no pancakes is upon us! Woe unto humanity in these dark times!"

"Nonono Nora! We…uh…" Jaune desperately tried to think of something to say and looked at both Ren and Pyrrha for help. The former was looking like he was trying to find an escape route; the latter was tapping her hands over her ears, clearly trying to figure out if her hearing was still working.

"We just…need…to…setupourownpancakestall!" The words tumbled out of his mouth.

Nora cocked an eyebrow, "What?"

"What's all this racket this early in the morning?" Professor Glynda Goodwitch demanded as Team RWBY entered the dining hall behind her.

"I was just telling Nora that instead of…uh…destroying the dining hall we could just make our very own pancake stand!" Jaune spoke.

 _Oh god, did that just come out of my mouth?_ Jaune dropped a bead of sweat.

Glynda Goodwitch's eye twitched as Nora's eyes slowly widened.

"You…you really think so?" Nora's lip quivered in anticipation.

"Uh…" Jaune spared a glance at everyone else, all of whom were shaking their heads vehemently.

"Leader?" Nora's eyes went wide and she stared right into Jaune's own eyes.

 _How the hell…isn't that Ruby's schtick?!_ Jaune tried to look away but was overcome.

"Yes, yes I'm sure of it Nora, I'll talk to headmaster Ozpin and see what he thinks about it so just calm down ok?" Jaune noted, to his surprise Nora hung her head and looked down at the floor.

"You…you'd do that leader?"

"Of course Nora, you're my teammate right? I'm your leader so I'll always-"

"YAY! BEST LEADER EVER!" Nora pulled Jaune into a crushing hug that squeezed all the air out of his lungs and may or may not have given him a bruised rib or two.

Sometime later, after the others had pried Nora off of Jaune, Yang patted him on the back as everyone stood in line and tried to get some breakfast, "Was that a good idea Prince Charming?" Yang asked with a smirk.

"What?" Jaune said and looked at her.

"I said, was that a good idea?"

" _What?_ "

" _I said was that a good idea_?"

"What?!"

"Are you deaf?!" Yang raised her voice.

"What?!"

* * *

 _ **A few weeks later,**_

"No no no, this won't work, we have to…

"Aw come on, that's just gonna…"

"No listen to me, we need to…"

"And I'm telling you ice-y queen, you're not…"

"What did you just call me? I…"

"You heard me you…!"

"Ren! Control your…"

"Nora…"

"Oh who cares, I'm just gonna…"

"Hey watch it…!"

As the argument went on and on, off to the side, two blondes were watching the scene with amusement as a beleaguered Ren looked between the two of them and sighed.

"I still don't believe you managed to rope Weiss Schnee of all people into this little project." Yang smirked as the icy heiress yelled something again at the hammer maiden who had just broken something else by attempting to hammer a nail in with Magnhild.

At the moment, the two teams were trying to set up a rather large stall in the Beacon Academy courtyard with chairs and tables all about. Now on just about any other occasion, this would definitely have seemed strange within an academy for aspiring huntsmen and huntresses and would normally require a decent amount of explanation to have to be given to any of the random Beacon students or staff passing by witnessing the mess of metal rods and plastic chairs and tables and all the paraphernalia assorted with creating an outdoor café.

On the other hand, the teams involved in this project were RWBY and JNPR.

The result of that was that most simply accepted that part of the explanation and moved on, preferring to let Glynda Goodwitch deal with whatever brand of craziness the two teams had cooked up this time.

"Weiss acts all high and mighty, but if you know how to push her buttons I guarantee that you can get her to do anything for you." Jaune nodded.

"I wasn't aware she had a button for 'do anything', I thought it was all nothing but a long line of sharp comebacks and yelling at everything she doesn't like."

"Oh trust me; she has buttons to push alright." Jaune let out a chuckle.

"Such as?"

"Flattery…for example."

* * *

 _ **A week prior,**_

"Absolutely not." Weiss growled out and folded her arms. "not in a million years."

"Aw come on Weiss, Nora's really excited about this; the headmaster even gave his approval." Jaune pleaded.

"While I feel that the headmaster's approval is certainly a mark of his mentality, I most certainly am not about to go there Jaune, so for the last time my answer is no." Weiss rolled her eyes.

"But Nora's been really _really_ excited about this! Come on Weiss, just this once please?"

"Nora isn't my concern Jaune, she's your concern as her team leader to satisfy…whatever she needs satisfied."

"Yes but you are the heiress of the Schnee Dust Company, the one most possessed of business acumen in the team." Jaune's eyes widened, "the one who could make this venture a success."

"So? Even if I-" Weiss was cut off when Jaune started speaking again.

"I think you could really use this opportunity to prove yourself to everyone, show something a bit different from the usual fighting and battling, show everyone that a Schnee has the capability and the sense to take something small and simple and turn it into something truly great."

"You're not actually suggesting that this could take off?" Weiss quirked an eyebrow.

"No, what I'm suggesting is that with your help, it very well might."

There was a pause between the two.

"I…well since you asked so nicely, I suppose I could help…" Weiss swallowed a little and blushed a little.

"That's great!" Jaune suddenly grabbed her hand and shook it fiercely, "we start this weekend first thing in the morning!"

* * *

"Well it went something like that anyway." Jaune waved his hand dismissively.

"Wow there Prince Charming, I didn't know you knew how to suck up to people." Yang shook her head with a grin. Yang had started using that nickname for Jaune ever since Nora had come up with her little idea on Jaune being a prince, unfortunately for Jaune, the nickname had stuck and Yang was not letting go.

So he had sucked it up and moved on.

"A lot of people just want their egos to have a long, slow, gentle stroking." Jaune gave a knowing smirk.

"Oh is that so? Does your ego…need a little…stroking yourself?" Yang turned to him and lifted an eyebrow with a playful smile.

"As I always say Yang," Jaune looked at her out of the corner of his eye with a thin smile, "I have no idea what you're talking about." Both let out a hearty laugh.

"On another note," Yang gestured to another four people a distance away who were sitting around a large rectangular banner with spray paint and brushes, "How on Remnant did you manage to get a second-year team to help us out on this?" At the moment, Team CFVY was trying to come up with a design for the banner that would be placed across the top of the stall once… _if_ it was completed.

"Oh that one wasn't so bad; they actually offered to help out."

"Really? How?"

"Remember that little incident in the dining hall with Velvet?"

"Oh…"

"Yeah so apparently…"

* * *

 _ **Slightly less than a week prior,**_

 _Hm, we're going to need a flashy design to get attention, but what kind of design?_ Jaune frowned and rubbed his forehead, mulling over several doodles he and Ruby were coming up with for the banner at a table in the courtyard. Meanwhile the Red Reaper was busying herself continuing to sketch out and draw rough ideas.

"Hm, like this? Or like this?" She scratched her head, "What do you think Jaune?" Jaune lifted his head to look at her.

"Hm, that's a little _too_ bright, they might think we're a bunch of children." Jaune pointed at one which had flowery designs and pink and white overlays, "and that one looks a little _too_ fancy, we're not some high-class dining restaurant." Jaune chided lightly.

"Oh come on! It doesn't look that bad to me!" Ruby pouted childishly.

"Well…" Jaune turned and looked at some of the other designs sprawled out in front of him, there was one that looked awfully uptight, a completely boring one, and one that…was that a machinegun turret doodled on the top?

"I suppose both definitely look better than the rest you've given me."

"Ok I give up then," Ruby threw her hands up in the air and slouched dejectedly in her chair, "we're never going to get this done." She slumped adorably, Jaune patted her on the head and smirked as she folded her arms and pouted again.

"Which reminds me, how are things between you and Weiss now? You two seem to be a lot friendlier with each other now." Jaune asked, Ruby looked down and fidgeted a bit.

"Yeah, Weiss can be really nice," Ruby nodded her head slightly, "now instead of being cold and irritable she's just cold, I think you were right after all."

"Right about what?"

"When you said she had a reason for being that way, we just don't know the reason yet."

Before Jaune could continue speaking, he was interrupted when a strange woman approached them.

"Jaune Arc?" She lowered the aviator glasses on her face to look at him.

She was wearing sunglasses –indoors for some reason-, a beret on her head and _quite a lot_ of accessories including necklace, scarf, gloves, carrying a black handbag.

 _Well she's certainly all dressed up, and probably nowhere to go to._ Jaune thought as he put on his best smile and said, "Who's asking?"

"I'm Coco Adel, second-year, leader of Team CFVY, sorry but I never got the chance to thank you up until now for helping out with Velvet's Winchester problem," She gave a smile.

 _Oh so that's what it is._ "Not a problem Ms. Adel, I couldn't possibly leave a woman in such a distressing situation." Jaune placed one hand over his heart and continued with his smile.

"Oh a knight-in-shining armor now huh?" Coco smirked, "From what I heard, instead of trying to fight Cardin you actually tried to be diplomatic about it. May I ask why? Most would simply have chosen to beat his skull in, case in point me." She jerked her thumb towards herself.

"Well…" Jaune gave an embarrassed smile, "There was no need for a fight, and so I defused the situation and ensured no one got in trouble with Professor Goodwitch."

"Huh, I see. Well if there is anything you need do let me know, I'll see if I can help out as thanks."

"Actually, now that you mention it…" Jaune trailed off and looked at the drawings in front of him while Coco gave him a questioning look.

"You wouldn't perchance know how to design a banner would you?" Jaune asked.

Coco grinned, "Well if it's anything related to design then you've come to the right person, what're you looking for?" She asked.

"We're trying to design a banner for a breakfast stall." Ruby explained and showed off several of her drawings, Coco looked like she was trying not to grimace at them.

"Not a…" Coco took some of them and flinched, "bad design per se, but it could use a little refinement…" She trailed off as Ruby flopped back into her chair.

"Tell you what, give me a few days to think of something, then I'll get back to you."

* * *

"Wow you really are a prince charming, not only melting the heart of the resident ice queen, but also using favors to get others to help out? Truly the ch- _arc -_ mer of our times." Yang folded her arms and took a step back with a smirk while Jaune snorted at her really bad pun.

"Man, you're not really going to ever let go of that are you?" Jaune looked at Yang and shook his head.

"Nope!" Yang nodded and both turned to look at the scene, just in time to watch Nora rush about something and knock Weiss over in the process.

"NO-RA!" Weiss screamed as she toppled over and landed face down in the dirt.

"Whelp, looks like we better go help out before the place really blows up." Jaune started walking towards Weiss with Yang right behind him.

"You ok there Weiss-y?" Yang asked as Jaune knelt beside the fallen heiress, to the surprise of both, she shot up, sitting on her heels with a look of pained frustration in her eyes as she glared right at Jaune.

"This is all your fault!" She made a feeble attempt to punch him.

"What did I do now?" Jaune batted away her fist.

"You manipulated me into helping you do this!" She very nearly sobbed.

"Oh come on, don't be like that Weiss, weren't you the one who was most enthusiastic about this little project?"

* * *

Teams RWBY and JNPR were gathered in JNPR's room to discuss their little project, fortunately Ozpin had agreed to it, it helped that Jaune had persuaded him by way of ensuring that the budget for "things that get destroyed by Yang Xiao Long and Nora Valkyrie" could be tightened a little bit.

"Alright Ruby you'll be in charge of procuring materials." Weiss stated.

"Why me?!" Ruby cried indignantly.

"Because as the one most possessed of business acumen and themost sensible person here, I said so…also because I'm bigger than you."

"See that's not really fair Weiss," Jaune noted as he looked down at her feet, "that's only because you're wearing…what? Three-inch heel boots?"

Giggles erupted all throughout the room while Weiss looked rather indignant; Jaune shot a look at his partner who was hiding her giggling behind the back of her hand.

"Don't you laugh Pyrrha, you wear pretty high heels too." Jaune rolled his eyes, "Ok Weiss, _you_ will be in charge of procurement of materials, I'm sure this will be an interesting learning curve for the future heiress"

"Hold on a minute! I want to be clear on where are we going to get funding for this, I'm most certainly not paying for all this out of my own pocket!" Weiss exclaimed and folded her arms to signal the finality.

Silence reigned as everyone realized that they had forgotten to consider the most obvious part of the project.

Funding.

"Oh don't tell me you imbeciles didn't even consider that part when you were thinking all of this up?" Weiss facepalmed and sighed, "alright, I guess I can-"

"I'll do it." Jaune stated, everyone stared at him, "I'll fund this thing."

"Oh and now we're supposed to believe you have deep pockets?"

"Just watch me Ms. Schnee…" Jaune had a curious glint in his eyes as he leaned across the table.

* * *

Weiss lifted an eyebrow in a questioning glance.

"So come on now, I'll talk to Nora, get her to simmer down some, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and continue on like how you always have Weiss." Jaune put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Weiss sighed and looked down, "a-alright."

"You're really a lot like an onion, aren't you Weiss?" Jaune smiled.

Weiss looked at him like he had grown two heads, "Huh?"

 _Oh this should be good._ Yang thought with a mischievous smile on her face.

"It's not the real you that's on the outside, you have to slowly and gently peel back all the layers one by one, and every time you peel back a layer it just makes you cry and cry until you get the center whereupon you realize that it's actually the most painful part of the onion to deal with and then you realize you should probably have listened to mum and washed it under running water or something and then all you have to show for your effort is a lot of painful tears." Now both Weiss and Yang were staring at him with the most bewildered expressions on their face.

"…Yeah I guess that went nowhere but you get the point right?" Jaune shrugged.

Weiss blinked several times before she rolled her eyes as she stood up and dusted herself off, "Just think of it as thanks for helping me out on my essay."

* * *

 _ **A few weeks ago, in the Beacon library,**_

"So could you tell me the economy of the Royal enclaves is based on?"

"We're somewhat self-sufficient, there's not much for us to trade out anyway, however we do import most of our food and any advanced technology, heavy industry machines and the like since we lack the resources to produce them ourselves. Also, nearly all dust is imported from Vale, there are only a single small dust mine in the area of Mount Kiffhaus."

"I see, then what are the primary purposes of each of the royal enclaves?"

"Armorica serves as a hub between each of the other enclaves. Frostriver is based at the mouth of a river; it was colonized sometime after the other three in order to take advantage of the sediment built up from upstream to farm the area, before the colonizing was done the Royal Legion had to set up a whole line of defenses beforehand, after that the militia came to take over and then settlers were finally brought in, the entire process took years to accomplish." Jaune took a breath, "Mount Kiffhaus existed long before the royal enclaves did as a hideout and permanent stronghold for the royal family, when the House of Vale relinquished power, the castle's population remained loyal to them."

Weiss clicked her pen absentmindedly, trying to think of more questions to ask while she looked over the notes she had already written, she had planned to write a more general essay focusing on the economy of the royal enclaves and their effect on the kingdom of Vale. While she had previously known about the royal enclaves, having a person who had actually been there allowed her to glean a significant amount of information just from this little interview that they had both set up.

It had been Jaune's idea.

It helped that she had basically went and asked him straight away, more or less reserving all of his knowledge for herself before anyone else could. Incredibly, he had suggested styling it like some sort of interview where she took notes while asking him questions, she had rolled her eyes at it initially but after a little initial discomfort, questions and answers were flowing freely between the two, Weiss hated to admit it, but she actually kind of enjoying this strange interaction.

If she were honest, she seriously envied the playful knight, while they had gotten off to a bad start and he was fond of mocking and teasing her at every turn, he was basically doing everything that she sometimes wished she could be doing. Even though she had accepted her place within the team, she often found herself looking at the knight and his team, the confidence with which he led them, the easy way in which he interacted with them right from the beginning, the gentle way in which he kept the more rowdy member of his team in line, pushing them and keeping them straight as best as he could, sparring freely and easily with his own partner…

All the things that she wished she could have done from the beginning.

A cool, calm, well-mannered and unfailingly polite leader who carried himself well, with a good sense of self-esteem and a knack for easing himself into and out of social situations with grace and poise.

Aside Yang's nickname, Weiss sometimes swore he seemed like a real prince at times.

"Will that be all Ms. Schnee?" Jaune asked, snapping Weiss out of her thoughts.

"Hm…yes I think that should be enough, thanks a lot for this, I…" Weiss rubbed her forehead, "I guess this means I owe you one for the help."

"Not a problem Ms. Schnee, I'm always happy to lend a helping hand." Jaune flashed a brilliant smile that could have blinded anyone with its brightness. At the moment Weiss Schnee was being blinded by it, and could not do a damn thing about it.

* * *

"So what is actually left to do anyway?" Yang asked as Jaune walked off to talk with Nora.

"Setting up is the last thing to do; we already have all the materials we need, as long as _someone_ doesn't continue to ruin it."

"And the menu?"

"Well there's not much on it, they're just many different variations of pancakes and coffee."

"Coffee?"

"It was Coco Adel's idea." Weiss jerked her thumb back at Team CFVY.

"So what's the schedule like?"

"Basically Ren and Coco run the stall early in the morning an hour before classes start making pancakes an coffee respectively, how that sleepyhead and that fashionista are going to manage is beyond me." Weiss waved her hand dismissively.

"Y'know I just had an extra thought." Yang tapped her finger on the side of her head

"Oh spare us." Weiss sarcastically remarked.

"Oh quit it ice queen," She received a glare for that, "I was thinking about why we don't turn this into a full-time thing, instead of just breakfast why not include lunch and dinner too? I mean it's not like the dining hall food is terrible or anything but…" Yang stopped and thought about it.

 _It's always the same basic thing done over and over every week isn't it? Monday is "drag your feet day" and be lazy so everything tastes a little bland, Tuesday is "It's ok" day so everything is just normal, Wednesday is "We're halfway done day" so the food actually tastes a bit better, Thursday is "We're at the end day" so they like to serve noodles, Friday is 'abandon all hope' day because they aren't around for the weekend so they can't give a shit…_

Weiss was giving Yang a strange look as the brawler completed her train of thought, "ok yeah it's not that great but hey! We could do better, and I mean _way_ better."

"Go tell Jaune that then, tell him about going over budget because we're going to need more equipment, and where are we going to find a cook anyway, I mean we have Ren and all but I don't think he'd like having all of his time taken up like that." Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose.

"I'll do it." Yang answered.

"…what?"

"You heard me."

"I heard you, I don't believe you."

"Why not?"

"I have yet to see evidence of this… _new talent_ of yours." Weiss wave a hand in the air in dismissal.

"Well you see, my dad fell into a bit of a fump after my stepmom –Ruby's mom- left, so in that time I basically had to take care of the household, cooking, cleaning that sorta stuff." Yang grinned.

"Well do whatever you have to do; I'm going to take a break before my mind breaks." Weiss shrugged and walked off somewhere.

"Well then _I_ shall work on an updated menu."

At the same time as Weiss went off to take a break and Yang went off to do her own thing, Jaune was trying to calm the hyper Valkyrie down and make her focus.

"Nora, we're not going to get anywhere if you just keep breaking everything." Jaune sternly scolded.

"Sorry Jaune-y."

 _Does she actually look ashamed or is that just me?_ Jaune wondered, "I know you're full of energy Nora, so just focus your energy and help Ren build the stall alright?"

"But it's taking so long?! When's it going to get done?" She stomped her foot impatiently.

"Focus Nora! Just think only of helping Ren complete the stall ok?" Jaune placed both of his hands on her shoulders and looked at her in the eye, although if he was honest he did not really know what he was doing. Ren was giving him a strange look from where he stood amid a jumble of wood and metal debris.

 _Where's my genius twin sister to help me out when I need her? Oh right she's in Atlas now._ Jaune sighed to himself quietly.

"Ok…focus…focus…focus." Nora took a deep breath, "Focus." She let it out and gave a determined look.

"That's much better, now go and-" Jaune was stopped when Nora abruptly dashed back to the site of the stall and started cleaning up and knocking it together at Mach speeds, Jaune looked on in astonishment, the hammer maiden never ceased to find ways to surprise him at every possible turn.

* * *

 _ **A long time later,**_

After Jaune had finally gotten Nora to simmer down some and start working on the stall, after Weiss had finally calmed herself down, , after Team CFVY were finally done with the banner and…

And Yang had apparently created a whole new menu?

 _What?_ Jaune stared at the list Yang was holding out in front of his face.

"You heard me, _I'm_ suggesting that _I_ could totally help out."

"I heard you, I don't believe you."

"Funny, Weiss said the exact same thing that you did not too long ago."

"Well I what you're trying to do, I'm just wondering why you would even do something like this."

"Hey even I need to do something different every now and then to _cook off_ the stress."

Jaune sighed, it had been a long, long day and he really did not feel like arguing with the blonde brawler, besides it was getting late, the sun was starting to go down.

"Look," Yang said, "let me cook for you guy this once, I'll show you that I'm not just some flirt, although I can be that too if you need it." Yang gave a sly wink.

"Fine." Jaune answered.

A little later, people from all three teams had gathered to celebrate the opening of _Nora Valkyrie's breakfast things_.

"Where have you all been all day anyway?" Jaune asked.

"In the library." Blake deadpanned.

"I was just getting Milo fixed up after our last spar Jaune." Pyrrha answered.

"I was…uh… _studying_." Ruby said airily.

"Well nevermind about all that, you're about to be the test customers before _Nora Valkyrie's breakfast things_ opens tomorrow, so let's get to it people."

Soon, the whole group including CFVY were seated around a round table, Nora zipped over with a tray of water carrying several menus and a notebook.

"Good evening all! What can Nora Valkyrie's breakfast get for you today?"

"Seems rather strange, a breakfast stall serving what is essentially dinner…" Blake stared at the menu.

"Right then, so we'll just change the title." Coco waved her hand dismissively and took out a marker.

 _Nora Valkyrie's breakfast and other things_

"Still a little strange considering breakfast isn't really the main part of the menu anymore."

"Roger that."

 _Nora Valkyrie's breakfast…among other things_

"Are you idiots going to order anything or not?" Nora looked rather impatient.

"Wait who's doing the cooking? Ren?" Ruby asked.

"And Yang," Jaune finished, Pyrrha and Blake lifted eyebrows at that.

"It's a long story." Jaune quickly dismissed any response they might have had.

"ORDERS!" Nora shouted, startling all of them.

"OK OK don't kill anyone now Nora." Jaune and the others picked up the menus, after a few minutes, orders were placed. Sometime later, Nora whipped around the table carrying their food and placing them surprisingly delicately

"Hey, this is pretty good." Coco noted.

The next morning, when Beacon woke once again, students walking past the courtyard were greeted with an intriguing sight. A small circular stall set up right in the center of the courtyard and surrounded on all sides by plastic tables and chairs.

One of the students cautiously walked up to the stall, looking it over slowly and was immediately pounced upon by the hyper hammer maiden out of nowhere.

"Welcome to Nora Valkyrie's Breakfast Among Other Things! What can I get for you today?"

* * *

 **God this took forever to finish, after I ran out of ideas I mopped around a bit and spent time working on a separate fic to try and open my mind a bit, that didn't really work out either so the chapter ended up plodding along stupidly like some dumb elephant until I forced it to finish.**

 **I won't be surprised if I receive quite a lot of criticism for weird pacing issues and inconsistencies.**

 **Omake is my tribute to every pun-geon master ever.**

 **In this case, think of it as another combat class lesson, wherein Nora is beating on some poor soul.**

* * *

 **Pun-off**

Everyone watched with awe as Nora slammed an electrically charged Magnhild down, blasting her opponent with a wave off electricity and knocking him down for good in what had been a very short, yet very intense match.

" _Watt_ are you doing over there?" Yang called out to everyone's consternation.

"Yeah I'd say that was...pretty _shocking_ to say the least." Jaune nodded and grinned to himself while everyone groaned, Yang folded her arms and made a dangerous smirk.

"I know right? I sure wouldn't want to be in their... _current_ position." _beat that Prince Charming._

"Really? Well I bet he just wants to go _Ohm_." Jaune narrowed his eyes and returned the smirk.

Yang thought hard for a moment and decided to switch tactics, "Nora has a really electric _disposition_ don't you think?"

"I know, she really _blitzed_ that guy."

"She's all _wired_ up isn't she?" Yang tried again.

Jaune had to think about that for a moment, just when Yang thought she had won though...

"I think she needs a _charge up_ first though."

"Well I think she still managed to take the class by storm!" Both were really getting into it now.

Jaune continued smirking, "...now wouldn't that be a pun-derstorm?"

"GET A ROOM YOU TWO!" Weiss shouted, and it was echoed all throughout the class.

"Oh I think I will," Yang leaned dangerously close to Jaune, "How about it Pun-ce charming?"

* * *

 **Hurricane Yang is forecast to make _Yangfall_ within the week, our weather expert believes its winds are strong enough to _storm_ right in, _blow_ you, your mind, your house, your waifu and your cat away with a _pun_ -ishing _deluge_ of wittery that may or may not cause you to commit suicide on the spot to save yourself from the _flood_ of pain that would result from such a _watery_ disaster.**

 **We appreciate you taking the time to listen to this Pun-blic safety announcement, your survival depends on _xiao long_ you take to get out of there.**

 **And _I_ appreciate all your reviews, faves and follows!**


	10. Fresh Prince of Beacon

**I am such a kid of '90s...I would totally have put in a rap at the beginning or the ending as an omake, but I couldn't figure out a proper rhyme so I left it out.**

 **Feeling much better about this chapter compared to the last one, perhaps there are still some issues but I feel that this one went better overall.**

 **The first part of this chapter is based on a series of posts from the RWBY 4chan board, reposted also to the RWBY reddit site. The general train of thought is that with the total NON-standardization of weapons and parts, the logistics department would be constantly overworked to keep the hunters supplied with ammo and parts, leading to a lot of hilarity when Jaune shows up with a sword and board making all of them cheer.**

 **Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

Whenever the common people of the four kingdoms think of "huntsmen and huntresses", they usually think of teams of Grimm deathmachines wielding strange, mecha-shifting weapons with up to three different forms and a myriad of strange powers called "semblances" unique to each and every hunter. Moving calmly and with grace, mowing down entire hordes of Grimm with barely any effort.

Rarely do any of them every think of those behind the huntsmen.

They are of course, the men and women who work at Beacon's logistics office and forge.

This may seem strange to you, considering that most hunters are expected to be capable of performing the basic maintenance on their weapon. But that's the thing, they're only expected to perform 'basic' maintenance on their weapons, which is normally relegated to polishing and ensuring that the various components are maintained in pristine condition, a weapon falling apart or malfunctioning in the heat of battle would be disastrous, a death sentence to the unlucky hunter.

Pyrrha Nikos of all people understood the importance of proper maintenance as the champion of Mistral, always ensuring that her blade and shield were polished, kept and at their 100%.

 _Always_

Which was why she was currently at the Becaon forge to get Milo repaired, after another sparring session with Jaune, he had made yet another gash in the blade.

 _At this rate, I'm going to have to get a new weapon._ She thought, the blade of Crocea Mors was _very_ strong and sharp, to completely absurd levels; it made no sense that her own equipment was receiving so much wear and tear against it while Jaune's weapon in turn remained as good as new. Every time they sparred –which was not very often-, the gashes in Milo got deeper, scratches and dents in Akouo became wider and longer, it was infuriating to have to visit the forge for a repair work after every single spar they had.

It was cutting into her alone time with Jaune.

Then again, Crocea Mors was apparently a hand-me-down that had lasted through all the battles and wars that his family line had been through. That shit had probably been built to last.

 _I need to figure out a way to reinforce Milo; otherwise I'm never going to get to spend more time with Jaune._ Pyrrha's cheeks went a light red at the thought; the fact that the object of her affections was right beside her at that point in time did not help.

"C'mon Pyrrha, you're being a little slow today." She was jolted out of her thoughts when Jaune put an arm around her shoulder and gave her a little push, she squeaked a little at the contact and stumbled forward a bit.

"Why can't you just let me enjoy the time I spend with you a little more slowly?" Pyrrha muttered to herself, Jaune blinked.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Wha…? err…I-I mean yeah we should get going right?" She gave an awkward smile and immediately set off at a faster pace than before.

 _I can't believe I said that out loud, what's wrong with me?_ Pyrrha shook her head slightly.

"Are you alright Pyrrha?" Jaune asked in a concerned tone.

"Yes I'm perfectly fine Jaune!" She nearly shouted at him as she walked.

"O-k, if you say so." They continued on for some time until they came upon a large set of doors, beside the doors were the words:

 _Forge/Armory_

Underneath the words were scrawled additional words:

 _Check your hunter privilege before you enter you dumbf***s_

Jaune laughed and snorted, causing Pyrrha to give him a weird look,

"Sorry Pyrrha," He answered, "that phrase always gets me every time I come here."

"Do you come here often Jaune?"

"Not really, but they're all really nice folks and so I really enjoy just coming down here sometimes, spending time talking and making conversation with them, a lot of them are really good people…" He smiled brightly.

Pyrrha lifted an eyebrow at that, in all the times that she had ever visited the forge the impression she got was that the forge smiths and workers were not the most pleasant of people, snide comebacks and snappy answers were supposedly the norm whenever the hunters-in-training had to go to them. It was for that exact reason that most of Beacon Academy's student population did their best to avoid the forge smiths. Pyrrha was no exception to the rule, the few times she had visited she had been greeted with almost nothing but the snarkiest and most sarcastic of words, she had done her best to ignore them though and merely presented them with the work she needed help with, in the end she usually got what she needed, so what did a few bad-tempered people matter if she was able to get back her weapon in good condition?

"Shall we?" Jaune walked up to the doors and gave them a mighty push, the door swung open slowly with a creaking noise and instantly, the two were engulfed by the thick and acrid smell of molten metal and the dull sounds of hammers banging against anvils.

The Beacon Forge was a long and tall hallway whose high walls opened out into the sky above. On one side of the hallway, a series of smithy's where men and women were working on various weapons, on the other were other benches and workstations where others checked over and polished weapons that had already been made or repaired. Further down there were a few ammunition presses where a few students were working on the bullets for their "it's also a gun" weapons.

"C'mon, let's see about doing something for Milo." Pyrrha nodded and let Jaune lead the way, "I know a woman who could help out, she helps me sharpen the blade-sheathe I use for Crocea Mors, she might be able to do something for you."

They moved past several workstations where they were mostly ignored by the people working there. They moved on until they came upon a tall, dark-haired woman with an olive green bandana on her head, underneath her apron she wore a black shirt and leggings the same color as her bandana as well as a mask covering her face, at the moment she was banging her hammer against some strange type of spear.

As they drew nearer, they ended up overhearing her muttering as she brought the hammer down, "Goddamn hunters, who the hell do they think they are? Always with all these stupid mecha-shifting weapons, at least that one kid only has a sword, a blade-sheathe, a shield sheathe and a knife to take care of..."

"Ms. Vulcan?" Jaune called out from behind her.

"What do you want?" Vulcan hissed out and turned to direct a glare at the duo from behind her mask, but she stopped when she caught sight of Jaune smiling sheepishly, "Oh Jaune-y? Oh hey everyone! Jaune's here!" Vulcan waved one arm at the rest of the smiths while she lifted her mask with the other.

"Hey Jaune! How's it going mah man?" Came one voice.

"Need a hand with anything Jaune?" Another voice rang out.

"Jaune! Need another round of sword polishing?" One particularly high-strung female voice came out.

Pyrrha gaped at all of them.

"So what's up Jaune-y boy, anything in particular that we humble smiths can do for you today?" Vulcan grinned widely and put her hammer down gently, "polishing…checkups," She gestured to two other people who waved eagerly, "…maybe a little sharpening on the side for your sheathe? And how's that sword of yours coming along? Found out anything new about 'Indestructo Mors'?"

"Actually, it's not me; it's my friend today that needs your help." Jaune reached behind him and pulled Pyrrha to stand beside him.

"Ok but you sure there isn't anything we can do for you?" Vulcan insisted, clearly doing her best to seem not very interested in the resident champion standing right beside Jaune.

"Well sure, the blade-sheathe is a little scratched-" Jaune started and was immediately interrupted.

"Not a problem! Pass it here and let me see to it!" Vulcan stretched her hand out and wiggled her fingers, still grinning widely.

"Er thanks but-"

"Oh hurry up boy! We don't have all day!" She suddenly strode right over to Jaune reached to his side and yanked the blade-sheathe from his belt before he could say anything else and began eyeing it carefully.

"Hm yes, a few nicks here, a little scratch there, perhaps a bit more polish on this side? Hm hm hm…" She hummed softly, sat down and crossed her legs while admiring the object in her hands.

"Uh, Ms. Vulcan?" Jaune tried.

"Be quiet dearie; allow me a moment to appreciate this work of art." Vulcan shushed him; the entire length of the blade-sheathe was mostly plain and held no real design features save for the engraved double yellow crescent that decorated both sides of the bottom of the blade.

"Ms. Vulcan, I'm not here for me." Jaune explained.

"Well then what the hell are you here for anyway?" Vulcan lifted an eyebrow as she regarded him carefully.

"It's for my partner Pyrrha." Jaune gestured accordingly and moved to let Pyrrha come forward.

"Oh it's you again _Ms. Nikos_ ," Vulcan dryly remarked, "and what can I get do for you today? Another round of re-forging I presume?" Pyrrha could feel the latent animosity dripping off of the smith's every word, but shook it off nonetheless.

"Yes, Milo got broken again." Pyrrha handed the sword to her; Vulcan took it and looked it over with a quizzical eye before speaking

"It's not broken." Vulcan handed it back, Pyrrha looked flabbergasted.

"What do you mean it's not broken?! There's a gash in the blade right there!" She pointed out the large cut in the blade.

"Well as far as I can tell you can still the other side of the blade to slash your opponent with can't you? Also you can use the cut to…uh…" Vulcan looked thoughtful as she tried to think of something to say.

"She could use it to hook an enemy's weapon and disarm them as a surprise attack." Jaune shrugged.

"Yeah that thing he said." Vulcan nodded, Pyrrha looked astonished.

"You're taking her side?" She said quietly and gave a hurt look at Jaune.

"Uh…well…" Jaune tried to find a way out, "it was just a suggestion?"

"Well it's certainly a workable suggestion, all you'd need to do is cut a few more gashes on this side, and then you could use it to trap an opponent's own weapon." Vulcan nodded her head in agreement.

"I understand, but it's not what I'm looking for Ms. Vulcan, I need Milo fully repaired if possible _please_." Pyrrha replied with a hopeful tone in her voice, Vulcan cocked an eyebrow.

"Girly, I hope you _do_ realize that this kind of alloy combining high-carbon steel blades with match grade rifle parts is _bloody difficult_ and _bloody expensive_ to get a hold of?" Vulcan raised an eyebrow as she waved Milo around.

"Well yes but-"

"But what? You really think we can always afford to buy this kind of thing all the time?

"I-I guess not…" Pyrrha hung her head and drew her eyes downward.

"Exactly, _especially_ with damage like this…holy crap…" Vulcan touched the gash gingerly, "I don't know what the hell you do with this thing but it _needs to stop_ , I damn near took your whole sword apart and forged a whole new blade section the _last_ time this happened…"

"You…you reforged Milo?" Pyrrha looked at her with an incredulous expression.

"Well duh!" Vulcan scoffed, "Damage like this can't just be 'repaired' girly, sometimes entire parts have to be taken out and replaced, and while I'd love to say we could use Atlesian 3D printing tech to simply wish away all our problems, we're not _that_ rich."

"Wow I…I didn't know you…but how? I didn't even feel any difference in the weapon."

"That's because I'm the best damned smith in Remnant girly, and you better believe it."

"I…see, thank you so much-"

"If you really want to thank me that badly, why don't you just take proper care next time instead of just piling more work on me?" Vulcan growled.

"Yes ma'am." Pyrrha answered courteously.

"And don't call me ma'am; I'm not nearly _that_ old." Vulcan scoffed.

"Yes Ms. Vulcan."

"So…" Jaune paused to think about what to say next, "are we in an agreement then?"

"Agreement about what? I haven't agreed to anything Jaune-y." Vulcan rolled her eyes.

"Push Milo up to the top of your priority list?" Both females stared at him.

"Isn't that a bit much Jaune?" Pyrrha nervously asked, she could tell that the smith did not particularly like her.

"That's asking a lot Jaune-y boy." Vulcan squinted at him, internally wondering why Jaune would go so far even if it _was_ his partner.

"I know I know, but we really need the blade working, we're sparring together and improving our skills so if there is anything you can do to strengthen the blade _I_ would really appreciate it." Jaune gave it one final go.

"…Fine," Vulcan sighed, "but only because _you_ asked Jaune, consider this a favor from me to you." She smirked.

"Duly noted." Jaune smiled back.

"Well give me until the end of the week; it should be pretty good by then."

"Thank you for helping me with this Ms. Vulcan." Pyrrha gave a little bow.

"Yeah sure, now run along you two." Vulcan waved them away dismissively.

"Thank you very much once again Ms. Vulcan, we shan't take up anymore of your time." Jaune did his own graceful little bow and moved on.

Vulcan laughed at that and waved him away, the rest of the forge looked on as the knight and the champion walked away from her, passing through the hallway and back out through the doors, all the way they were watched by the rest of the forge workers.

"Well that was…something." Pyrrha said nervously as they exited and Jaune closed the door behind him.

"I won't deny Ms. Vulcan can be a little cranky and mean at times, but trust me when I say she's got a good heart beneath all of that, you just have to get to it." Jaune nodded as they made to go.

"You two seem… _close_." Pyrrha fought down the jealous feelings and tried to pose the question innocently.

"Well, I wouldn't say _close_ ," Jaune scratched the back of his head, "The first time I clipped Milo like that, I took Crocea Mors to the forge to see if I could figure out what it was made off, and that was when I became acquainted with the people who work there, Vulcan tried to scrape a sliver of the material from the blade, but it apparently broke everything they threw at it, even their best hammers flew off the handle trying to break the sword."

"You let them do _that_ to your weapon?" Pyrrha looked incredulous, "I don't think that was wise of you Jaune."

"Stress testing, you never know how your equipment really works until you try to beat it up."

"But still-"

"But nothing Pyrrha, we have the rest of the day to ourselves so let us go and enjoy it."

* * *

Meanwhile, Vulcan watched the knight and the champion exit the forge with growing hostility, the girl was clearly enamored with the knight. An eye twitched heavily and teeth ground together as she continued watching the champion acting lovey-dovey and repeatedly trying to gain the attention of the forge's favorite hunter-in-training and inspiration to them all.

It thoroughly disgusted her.

"Four-time champion of the Mistral Regional Tournament huh?" Vulcan hissed quietly as she let Milo fall onto the ground with a loud metallic 'clang' as she stood up.

"MY ASS!" She gave the sword a vicious kick and sent it sailing across the forge into a pile of other weapons that had been marked with a picket sign "To do". At that exact moment, the old wound in her leg acted up, pain shot through the leg she used and she tumbled to the floor swearing and cursing with a loud cry of pain.

"Fuckinghellgoddammitshit!" She yelled and let loose more curses and swears.

"Oh calm your tits woman," A voice rang out, one of those from before, a bald man with dark skin, crimson red eyes and long dreadlocks walked over to her and held his hand out to her, she took it gratefully and plopped back down into her seat.

"For crying out loud, I can't believe this! Why does he have to associate with that Nikos girl and that…that…that- who-we-shall-never-name?!" Vulcan said exasperatedly as she took up her hammer and twirled it in her hands a few times, "why, if I ever got the chance to, I'd…!" She gripped her hammer tightly and imagined heating various hunter weapons in her forge before smashing them to pieces with her hammer.

Somewhere, Ruby Rose felt a chill run up her spine and she clutched Crescent Rose to her body protectively.

"You'd do what exactly? Face it Vulcan this is as much as we can do, besides didn't you take the job specifically because you wanted to continue helping out even after you were injured? Were you ever so different from them?" The man queried, Vulcan's mood simmered down after hearing that.

"Sure thing Emil, I just forgot about that, damn if I didn't use to be the most arrogant bitch around these parts, now I know why forgemaster Hephaestus never stopped glaring at me, not with the weapon that I used to use." Vulcan let out a chuckle and silence passed between them momentarily.

"Shit I need a light," Vulcan broke out a pack of cigarettes

"Y'know Professor Goodwitch is going to kill you if she finds out about your smoking." Vulcan rolled her eyes at that.

"She can go and _fuck_ herself with her stupid cane thing for all I care,"

"It's a riding crop." Emil corrected.

"Whatever," Vulcan flipped him off and they descended into more laughing as she lit up a stick and took a long drag before blowing out a puff of smoke.

"Are you ever going to tell him?"

"About what?"

"That you're from Armorica too?"

"…Nah, I'll let him figure that one out on his own." Vulcan smirked.

"I think he's pretty cute!" Winnie, stepped into the conversation, she was much shorter than the other two, with dirty blonde hair tied into a bun and wearing a grey tank top over black jeans.

"Well he's a damn prince charming ain't he? Cool, calm, suave, polite, gentlemanly, and can talk a good game too." Vulcan took her cigarette out of her mouth and leaned back to relax, "I doubt if there is a woman on Remnant that could resist that kind of allure."

"He really is a lot like a prince isn't he?" Winnie made a perky smile that the others could not help but share.

"That he is Winnie…that he is." Vulcan grinned.

* * *

After leaving the Forge/Armory, Jaune left Pyrrha –much to her dismay- to go to the library to return some of the books that he had borrowed. Along the way, he considered looking around for the resident Faunus-in-hiding; he knew she often spent time in the library and would be in the darkest corner with the least amount of traffic.

I.e. the 'Mature' section

And so he entered the library, nodding acknowledgements to the librarian at the front of the desk as he made his way quickly towards the area with the least amount of students at most times of the day.

Unless it was night time, then traffic usually went up a little bit.

At the moment, Blake Belladonna was sitting on a couch against a pillar near a corner, neatly enclosing her from three directions but leaving her side wide open.

Jaune spied the resident Faunus-in-hiding and smiled, he had not had a real opportunity to speak with Blake; usually her attention was solely occupied with holding on to whatever book she was reading at the moment, in any case he had been rather busy of late, checking up on the breakfast stand to make sure everything was ok, sparring matches with Pyrrha every now and then once her weapon was repaired from the previous sparring match. He had switched back to his two-handed style several times so that his partner did not have to take her weapon to the forge every few days.

 _Also, I still haven't figured out what kind of Faunus she is._ He thought as he approached her, another thought entered his head, if she was _that_ focused on her book; maybe he could be stealthy enough to sneak up on her? Faunus senses be damned, he was sure as hell going to at least make the attempt.

He made a roundabout to catch her from behind her left side; he drew nearer from behind, measuring his breathing slowly and stepping forward as lightly as possible while timing it to coincide with other movements around him in the manner which he knew could fool even an adult Faunus especially if they were not paying close attention. And so he made his way to her, being careful to avoid her line of sight.

 _What is she reading anyway?_ He wondered as he finally caught up behind her and looked over her shoulder to glimpse a paragraph of the book she was reading.

 _Naruto stared deeply into Sasuke's eyes as he…_ Jaune immediately stopped reading after that line.

 _Oh it's that sort of thing._ He rolled his eyes, leaned on the wall and suppressed a big grin, "What're you reading there Blake?" He asked innocently from behind her, and once again he wished he had his scroll immediately on hand to capture the moment.

Blake jumped, slammed her book shut and turned to look at him with a look of pure terror on her face.

"Jaune!" She blurted out suddenly and tried to hide her book behind her, "err…what're you doing here?" She spat out while looking left and right shiftily.

"I came all the way here just to look for you, and this is the greeting I get?" Jaune gave a mocking pained expression while Blake resisted smirking and merely rolled her eyes.

"…Surely you can't have come all the way here just to disturb me?" Blake blinked and gave a look of mock innocence.

"Nope," Jaune answered as he sat down beside her, "I just wanted to talk to you, but then I got distracted by your erotica." He smirked, Blake looked a little peeved.

"It's _literature_." She corrected.

"No, I'm pretty sure that's gentlemen's reading material." Jaune deadpanned, "I question how long you have been doing this for, and which bookstore was willing to sell it to you."

"It. Is. Literature." Blake stated with narrowed eyes.

"You keep telling yourself that, maybe it'll come true one of these days." Jaune teased, "I'd read it to try and understand your perspective. Sadly, not necessarily my cup of tea, I prefer something a little lighter and not quite so intense."

"It _is_ true." Blake folded her arms and looked straight ahead, "So what did you want to talk about?"

"You of course."

"Me?" Blake gave him a questioning look.

"Yeah, you ever plan on…you know…?" Jaune lifted an eyebrow and trailed off, Blake's look turned into a sharp glare.

"No." She stated firmly in a way that left no room for discussion and turned away, her bow twitching ever so slightly in irritation

Jaune was completely absorbed in watching the bow; he gently reached over to touch it. In an instant however, Blake immediately raised one hand and slapped away his hand.

"Don't go touching me so freely like that." She hissed out, Jaune backed off immediately.

"Alright sure, but you should really think about telling them soon, better sooner than in some circumstance you might not want."

"Its fine that way, as long as one person can accept me for who I am, then that's fine." Blake said hastily.

"Seriously? Well I'm flattered but that's not healthy Blake." Jaune leaned his head back onto the couch and looked at the ceiling, "you don't even really accept yourself."

"Who said that?!" Blake glared at him, "You don't know what I've been through." She put her book down and leaned her own head back. She went tense when she suddenly felt fingers intertwine with her own and squeeze her hand tightly, when she turned her head she found Jaune looking right at her, the barest of a blush graced her cheeks, "J-Jaune, what're you-"

"How can you say you accept yourself when you still hide yourself like that?" Jaune gave her a strange, sad smile, "what are you afraid of Blake?" He asked quietly.

Blake grit her teeth, she wanted to pull her hand back away, and yet at the same time his hand felt warm and comforting, she did not want to admit it but the way he gently rubbed his fingers with hers felt…nice? She had seen him do the same thing with Pyrrha a few times, but had only ever rolled her eyes at the champion's reaction.

Now though, she could see why Pyrrha reacted like that, although it was probably amplified due to her feelings for him. For Blake though, it was just comforting enough that she was able to relax a little after a moment of fluster.

"I'm not afraid of anything; I told you already, I want to be treated equally." Blake rolled her eyes.

"Ah but you see Blake…" Jaune paused for a moment, "You wish to be treated equally, but you're doing it as a human, not as a Faunus."

"I…" Blake stopped, he had a point, everyone else looked at her as though she were a human rather than a Faunus.

"I know what you mean." She finished, "Just…let me have this, ok?"

"Sure, as long as you need Blake, your secret is safe with me. Don't take too long though, it's better for you to choose the circumstances rather than let circumstance choose you."

Blake let out a snort, "Where is all of this coming from? I didn't take you for someone who enjoyed lecturing others like that." she smirked.

"Har har har," Jaune sarcastically laughed, "But I guess you're right, I'll just shut up now." And both relaxed into the couch, content to enjoy each other's company quietly. Somehow, the warmth began to get to Blake, and she found herself feeling rather sleepy and dozing off slightly, just as she fell to the side though she was surprised when Jaune pulled her back to rest her head on his shoulder.

"What're you doing?" Blake asked quizzically.

"Flopping down like that seems rather painful, isn't my shoulder supportive enough?" Jaune gestured with a cocky smirk, Blake rolled her eyes.

"Well if you put it like that, then you'd better not move an inch or I'll kill you." Blake looked at him and smirked, "I need to rest for a while." And so saying she leaned into him and closed her eyes.

And fell asleep soon after.

She was surprised when she woke up on her back, her feet propped up on one end of the couch while her head rested on the other end

Jaune was nowhere to be seen.

 _Don't tell me…_ Blake's eyes widened and she shot up into a sitting position.

 _Was that a dream?!_ She nearly hollered out loud and gripped her head with her own hands.

 _Nononono, I can't be having dreams about him already?! W-w-what…I don't how to deal with this, but damn if he isn't such a charming-no! Down Blake! He's just a friend and…_ She ruffled her hair several times and gnashed her teeth until she felt something in her hand and realized she had crumpled a piece of paper unknowingly, she unfolded it and read the words.

 _Hey Blake, did you have a good sleep? Sorry I couldn't stick around longer until you woke up, but I have to go help Professor Oobleck with something, catch you some other time maybe? Private study lessons together in the library? Haha I kid I kid, I know where to find you in the library now anyway, well unless you don't ever want to see my face again in which case I'll just leave you alone._

 _P.S. You slept like a log, But don't worry I absolutely assure you I didn't try to peek at anything, really._

"…That stupid idiot." Blake growled beneath her breath but did not suppress the smirk on her face. She checked her scroll, it was getting late and she should probably start heading back to her own dorm before her team started making a fuss about it.

As she made her way out of the library, she noticed the librarian giving her a knowing smirk as she walked by, she lifted an eyebrow when she saw it but said nothing, as she passed by though, he finally said something.

"Have a good sleep there?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Blake stopped in her tracks and turned to face him.

"Oh nothing."

"No really, _enlighten_ me." Blake decided that if he wanted to play this little game, so could she, she sat down on the chair in front of him and glared at him with her arms folded.

"There's nothing for us to discuss."

"But you just had to open your mouth when I walked by?"

"Alright you got me," The librarian laughed, "Sorry my name is Darque Greyson; I'm the head librarian here."

"And what exactly is your interest in me?" Blake cocked an eyebrow, Greyson laughed.

"Nothing really, it's just that you and Jaune looked so comfortable together, if perhaps a little inappropriate." Blake's ears perked up when he mentioned Jaune's name.

"You know Jaune?"

"Sure, _everyone_ knows Jaune…" Greyson took a moment to register what he had just said as Blake narrowed her eyes, "Not remotely what I meant." He corrected.

"Well you probably wouldn't know it, but Jaune's a minor celebrity amongst the Beacon staff." Greyson smiled easily, his words making Blake lift her eyebrows.

"How so?"

"Because of how much he has done for all of us, knowingly and unknowingly." Greyson grinned and straightened his glasses, "for example, that little thing he pulled off with the _Nora Valkyrie's Breakfast Among Other Things_? You might think that would make the cooks indignant that someone else was taking their job away, but in fact he has ensured that the often hard-pressed cooks at the dining hall can offload some of their work to the breakfast stand."

"Well…I suppose you're right, but that's only one thing." Blake narrowed her eyes.

"Well then, as for us –and me in particular- one of the things he does is help us sort the books onto their proper shelves, too many students tend to just take books go somewhere else and then stuff them back onto the nearest shelf. He says he's a little obsessive over the order of things, but hey it works for me and the other librarians so it's all good."

"Alright, but I don't really-"

"I hear he is also much loved by the forge and armory workers, he carries a simple sword and shield doesn't he? Well considering they often have to deal with any number of strange weapons that are capable of shifting into multiple forms, they consider it a boon and blessing that he has such a simple weapon in contrast. Also, it's apparently indestructible, so that's one less thing for them to worry about."

Blake flinched at that, Gambol Shroud had probably caused them no end of grief.

"And of course…" Greyson lifted his finger declaratively; Blake leaned in close, listening attentively.

"If nothing else, he is endlessly polite and well-mannered, certainly he gives by far and wide more consideration to us than most of the other students." Greyson finished explaining, "most of whom don't really take into consideration the amount of work it takes to keep this place running."

"Hm…I see." Blake pursed her lips and thought about that remark, "I can agree on that point." She nodded.

"He's like our very own prince isn't he? A Prince of Beacon you could say."

"Yeah…I think I know what you mean." Blake was unaware of the small smile that was gracing her lips.

* * *

"Oh?" Greyson lifted both his eyebrows.

"Indeed, now you will excuse me, I have to go, thanks for the talk Greyson…I'll…keep what you said in mind."

"Not a problem Ms. Belladonna."

"Thank you very much for your assistance Mr. Arc." Oobleck gave a small smile.

"Not a problem profess- _doctor_ Oobleck." Jaune nodded, at the moment he was helping the Profes- _doctor_ carry boxes filled with various items to and fro between his class and his office after another class.

"I would never have thought a prince would stoop to the level of menial labour."

"Hah! The Royal Family has always led by example, if even we cannot perform such a simple task as this, how can we be trusted to perform greater tasks?" Jaune laughed, "My uncle always used to say that, as their leaders we should always inspire those around us to be greater than themselves, for me it starts with working at the lowest level." He finished.

"I'm sure many would appreciate such a thought; there are not so many willing to go such lengths in the service of others."

"Yup, digging trenches and pits alongside the men really keeps you 'in the know' about all the dangers that they face far from the help of hunters and the military." Jaune nodded.

"A man of the men I see, I think your father would be proud of you."

"Huh, I suppose so." Jaune gave a slightly dejected look.

"Is there something wrong your highness?"

"My father is a hunter first, and mom is his personal bullhead pilot, I don't really know either of them _that_ well, after my second eldest sister Princess Maria Theresa started taking over more and more of the job of governing both of them started going on missions more and more often, leaving the job of taking care of us to my uncle and his family."

"Ah I see, so you grew up mostly with the Crown Prince."

"Yeah, he's a really strict guy, but he's nice to, and he had his own little moments. I don't mean I don't love my own parents, but it's just…" Jaune sighed, "I wish they had been around more, nowadays its always one thing or another, dad is officially the duke of Armorica, but sometimes I think Maria -or "Marina" as she is more commonly known- is basically the duchess now."

"So she basically runs the region? Deciding budgets, crafting policy, drafting laws?" Oobleck asked with an intrigued expression.

"Yup," Jaune nodded with a grin, "she's always had an affinity for it, she's uncle's favorite Arc." Jaune laughed at this.

"My my, looks like you have a lot to live up to your highness." Oobleck chuckled.

"I know," Jaune's face became more downcast, "I wish I didn't have to though."

A little while later, Jaune had finished putting

"Well thank you very much your highness, I most certainly couldn't have done this so quickly without your help." Oobleck smiled as he put down the last box and adjusted his glasses.

"Of course, _always_ a pleasure to help sir." Jaune gave a quaint little bow.

* * *

 **I admit, I'm a bit of a sucker for knightshade/awkward kitty.**

 **I like to think of this chapter as the chapter where Jaune more or less becomes the cliche-d Male protagonist of a shoujo manga who seemingly is damn near perfect is every single way and is so gosh darn hard to hate for everyone. He helps everyone and everyone adores him, the last thing left for me to do is to give him his own fanclub, but that's for another day...**

 **Of course, who the shoujo is in this case is not for me to say, or for anyone to say...**

 **And since I'm such a sucker for knightshade, have this!**

* * *

 **Third option/last minute hookup/out of left field pairing**

"Well Jaune? Who's it going to be?" Pyrrha tapped her foot impatiently as she regarded him with a glare.

"Yeah, hurry up Jaune, you know it's me right?" Ruby pouted and folded her arms, "The first girl you met on your first day in Beacon? Crater Face who you helped up when no one else would?"

"Oh come on Ruby! You weren't there for him when he needed someone most, c'mon Jaune I've been training you since forever now!" Pyrrha shot a glare and jerked a thumb to herself.

"What do you mean 'weren't there'? When Jaune needed motivation and someone to talk to the most I gave it to him while you just packed up and gave him the cold shoulder just because he was a little mean to you." Ruby stuck her tongue out.

"Look you two there's no need to fight-" Jaune started but was swiftly interrupted.

"Well I see this is going to get resolved anytime soon, so pick one Jaune! Would you rather the token jailbait with no figure at all or me? The school idol." Pyrrha put on her best smile for the last part and leaned forward with her most seductive eyes.

"Excuse me? You're just desperate for attention now, and yet you're getting all the attention you could ever want! What about the rest of us? Who actually have to work for things?!" Ruby was indignant.

"Erm, well...see..." Jaune swallowed hard, he had been backed up against the wall, the two redheads giving him fierce and expectant looks, clearly expecting to be the one picked of the two. Jaune was completley

 _I've got to find a third option out of here._ Jaune looked left and right, desperately trying to find a way out as the two redheads alternated between arguing and staring at him like a pair of hungry lionesses. And then he spotted it his once chance to get away.

His only chance really if you think about it.

He pushed past the two of them and tackled said person to the ground and kissed him fully on the lips to the shock of everyone around them.

"So Ren, is there still space for the two of us?"

"Sure thing Jaune-y!" Nora cheered as she launched herself onto the two males.

"OT3 forever!" She squealed.

* * *

 **Wait what? No no no that wasn't it, not even close.**

 **Now where did I put that...**

 **Ah, I think this is it!**

* * *

"Oh stop it the both of you!" Yang Xiao Long suddenly came between the two redheads and Jaune and faced them both with a disappointed look on her face.

"You two should really be ashamed of yourselves," She frowned, "Jaune isn't some piece of property you can simply fight over!" She scolded firmly.

"What he needs is a girl who can bring him out of his awkward little shell, give him the time of his life, show him the world out there and tell him that she loves him for who he is," Yang explained,"and at the same time serve as a responsible anchor for the wild party girl, calm her down, teach her the meaning of restraint and put brakes on her every now and then, basically the relationship between an energetic gal and a quiet guy." Yang finished while nodding sagely, neither of the redheads looked amused.

"...but most importantly of all" She held up a finger and gave a smug smirk.

"Is a fellow natural blonde." And so saying she roughly shoved him up against the wall and forced her lips onto his, wrapping her arms around his neck to bring him closer.

Jaune surprisingly reciprocated, putting his arms around her waist.

* * *

 **Not that one either, seriously, where did I put it?**

 **Hm...**

 **Ah finally!**

* * *

 _I_ _'ve got to find a third option out of here._ Jaune looked left and right, desperately trying to find a way out as the two redheads alternated between arguing and staring at him like a pair of hungry lionesses. And then he spotted it his once chance to get away.

A certain neko walking by minding her own business while staring intently at the book in her hands.

"Blake!" Jaune pushed past the two redheads who looked behind them in confusion, and ran for the catgirl who looked up in surprise.

"Jaune? What're you-" Blake went stiff and dropped her book when Jaune suddenly pulled her close to him with his arms around her, his blue eyes staring deeply into her amber ones.

"Blake I love you, will you be my girlfriend?" He said and so saying pressed his lips firmly against her own.

 **Ten years later...**

"And that kids, is how I met your mother." Jaune grinned as he put his arm around a blushing Blake who leaned into his hold, in front of them were a boy and a girl, twins both with dark hair and blue eyes, and of course a pair of twitching cat ears on their heads.

"So wait, mom was just some third option love interest?"Ao, the girl looked at them weirdly.

"Man, and I thought it was going to be some dramatic love triangle thing." Kuro, the boy looked dejected.

Both parents sweat dropped at that, where on earth had they gotten those ideas from?

* * *

 **I thought the idea of naming the kids after colors as though they were actual cats would've been amusing. Both are Japanese, Ao is blue and Kuro is black.**

 **On a slightly different note, there needs to be more knightshade and icarus fanart, like seriously, there's not enough!**

 **And actually lancaster fanart as well, seriously...**

 **Any and all reviews, faves and follows will be greatly appreciated!**


	11. You Blake it, you bought it

**So after three chapters worth of filler material so that I could do some worldbuilding and plotting, we are back to the main story, specifically of course, Blake's little Arc (pun maybe intended) concerning her and the White Fang, as well as the docks incident.**

 **We start off with yet another dream sequence.**

 **DO enjoy!**

* * *

 _Jean Arc, reigning Duke of Armorica surveyed the scene before him, a ruined enemy encampment. Fallen tents, overturned pots, braziers lying haphazardly on their sides…_

 _And dead bodies everywhere._

 _Mostly rebels._

 _It had been a vicious attack that had started first in the night with Faunus infiltrators slaughtering sentries and guards quietly, opening the way for the rest of his own forces to follow through and decimate the enemy in their sleep._

 _How ironic. Jean thought, scant days ago it had been these very men who had been lying in wait for him, with the benefit of word from Robina, the olivewood ranger, he had sprung his own ambush on the ambushers. In the course of a single night he had utterly annihilated at least three quarters of a force of several thousand strong, the commanders had been targeted first for assassination, disorganizing the entire force and leaving them easy pickings, the remainder had routed and fled into the wilderness, probably to become food for the Grimm later on._

 _They were unlikely to be a problem._

 _The next step would of course be to continue onward to Corlayn Castle, he could only hope that this momentary delay had not given its besiegers the opportunity to force a breach into the castle and take it. It would have made all of his efforts up until this point worthless._

" _Milord." One of his captains came up to him he turned to face the man, "There's nothing else for us here, the enemy have been totally vanquished, what do you wish the men to do now?"_

" _Spread the word, give them an hour's rest, and then get ready to move, we will press on as usual as far as we can until we reach Corlayn castle, time is not with us." Jean ordered._

" _Understood milord." The captain gave a respectful bow and headed off._

 _An hour should give me more than enough time to bathe; I am utterly filthy after so many days…_ _Jean thought to himself, he knew of a nearby stream that he could use for his own needs, and so he gathered up a new set of clothing from his own pack and made his own way to a nearby stream within shouting distance of their temporary camp._

 _He placed his sword carefully at the water's edge within reach and undressed himself before stepping into the cool water; he let himself soak in it for several minutes, enjoying the warm sunshine on his own body._

" _Either your bravery or your stupidity knows no bounds." A soft snicker sounded and he grabbed his sword, or rather, he_ made _to grab it, only to find that it was not where he had left it, he turned to face the voice…_

 _And there she was, lying on her side, one arm propping up her head, hood pulled back so her crimson locks and fox ears –occasionally turning one way and the other- were readily shown, looking…no,_ gazing _at him with her deep brown eyes, her bow and quiver lay at her feet which were crossed one over the other. His sword in its sheathe were held in her other arm which she had lazily draped over her stomach._

 _Robina, ranger of olivewood extraordinaire._

" _Oh don't stop now," A mischievous smile crossed her face, "keep going, I_ like _what I see." She narrowed her eyes so that she had a dreamy look on her face. Jean was suddenly conscious of the fact that he was fully nude in front of a member of the opposite gender, but he fought down his embarrassment, stood his ground and looked right back at her._

" _Blasted woman, what do you want now?" He growled and turned away to return to washing, "Have you no respect for privacy or another person's modesty now?"_

" _Aw, is the knight in shining armor ashamed of another woman seeing him?" She sat up and let her feet dangle near the water's edge while she put his sword aside and tilted her head quizzically._

" _What is there to be ashamed off?" He scoffed in return, "some pattering Faunus lady who lives in the woods?" He rolled his eyes._

" _I do not 'patter' sir knight," Robina growled back, before growing silent, "I've been thinking…"_

" _About what? How you can next best ambush me when I'm alone and easy prey for you?" Jean sarcastically interrupted._

" _Oh don't be so proud of yourself," Robina waved her hand dismissively, "I just happened to be in the area foraging."_

" _Yes 'foraging', I can already tell that will be the new byword of the day."_

" _Oh come off of it!" Robina growled in a frustrated tone and kicked some water at him, "What I meant to say was, I was giving some thought to your…proposal the other night." She cast her eyes downward, "Where you serious about it?"_

" _Oh, well I was certainly serious when I said that, how about it?" Jean finally turned to regard her. She looked up and leaned back on her hands._

" _I have lived almost my entire life in these woods, living off the land freely one day to the next, hunting, protecting, and now I stand at a crossroads, an opportunity has been given to me to change the world, do I accept it? And all the hardship and pain that it will bring me? Or do I stay on course; peace and safety abound, but at the end of my life accomplish nothing except itself…" She seemed to talk to herself._

 _Jean remained silent for a while before he spoke, "I won't force you to make a decision, you yourself should now best what you want, and no one else can decide it for you." He remarked, silence reigned between the two._

" _I will be leaving the area shortly, make up your mind in that time." He stood up and moved to where his clothes were._

" _If I do join, what about my own people?" Robina asked._

" _They can come if they wish, or they can stay here, the choice is all theirs or yours to make." Jean explained as he began putting his clothes on. Robina gave him a somewhat shifty and disbelieving look._

" _Would I have your assurance that my own people would be treated equally alongside your own?"_

" _I treat all my men equally Robina." Jean finished buckling his belt, "In war, we are all brothers and sisters in arms."_

* * *

Jaune Arc woke up with a start, he surveyed his surroundings carefully, he was back in Team JNPR's dorm in Beacon academy.

 _His_ dormitory

He set up and scratched his head; at least it was not another battle scene.

 _Robina and Jean huh?_ He smirked as he looked out the window to watch the first rays of sunlight peeking out over the horizon. It Saturday, that meant no need to worry about classes, no need to worry about Port boring all of them to death with his stories, no need to worry about Glynda getting angry at everyone again, no need to worry about Ozpin, no need to worry about Oobleck…

Ok the last one he did not mind at all, history was a fun subject to Jaune, after all those who did not learn from it were doomed to repeat it time and time again no?

He hummed a little tune to himself as he changed out of his sleeping clothes; Nora and Ren were probably at breakfast stall already, while the weekend meant that Pyrrha probably wanted to sleep in. He looked over at his sleeping partner sprawled out haphazardly all over his bed and let himself snicker, he briefly contemplated taking another picture of her before deciding against it, that arm lock _really_ hurt.

He scribbled a quick note and tucked it into her hand and walked out of his dorm and towards the breakfast stall.

The dining hall did not operate on weekends, which left _Nora Valkyrie's Breakfast Among Other Things_ as the only available source of food on the weekends, this was done not just to give the dining hall workers a break, but to also encourage the students to go out into the city of Vale and socialize with each other. As it was, the stall was mostly empty save for the two teams that set it up in the first place. It was here that Jaune met up with Team RWBY, Ren and Yang were in the process of making breakfast while Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Nora were seated at a table.

Ruby waved Jaune over, "Over here Jaune!"

"Good morning everyone, how're we all doing today?" He smiled and looked at each of them.

"Great!" Ruby grinned widely.

"Super!" Nora smiled.

Blake gave the barest of nods in acknowledgement as she continued reading.

Weiss merely grunted a non-response as she continued fiddling with her nails.

Before sitting down, Jaune decided to brew a cup tea, he headed over to the front of the stall where Ren was making a stack of waffles.

"Any special tea today?" He asked as he leaned on the counter.

"Green tea this morning if you would Master Jaune." Ren kept a straight face as he put on his best butler voice, Jaune laughed at that as he took the teapot from Ren and took it to the table with two cups.

"Tea Ms. Schnee?" He offered, Weiss rolled her eyes but gave a small smile and pushed her own cup closer in response, he poured it out accordingly and she mumbled a small thanks. Jaune resisted scoffing, that was as much gratitude as anyone would get out of the heiress, it would not do to push his luck.

As he sat down, Weiss surprisingly began speaking, "The Vytal Festival is coming, obviously preparations are being made down in the city, and so I was thinking we should all go down and see what's happening." She looked around the table for responses.

"Splendid idea Weiss, since it's only friday and we have all the time in the day, we can start as soon as we finish breakfast." Jaune nodded.

"Aw do we have to?" Ruby groaned.

"Yes we should, as a representative of this academy it's _my_ duty to provide the best welcome we can to any arriving students from other academies."

 _Your remarks to Pyrrha at initiation notwithstanding._ Jaune thought.

"It's _your_ duty?" Ruby raised an eyebrow.

" _Our_ duty." Weiss corrected herself.

"So how do you plan on providing the best welcome possible Weiss?" Jaune asked as he leaned his head on one arm.

"Simple, we show them the best we have to offer; we are a proper, civilized people who will provide the best environment possible for the festival to take place."

"We should also sweep all the nonsense under the rug too, maybe bind and gag a few of the more excitable ones, present a perfectly squeaky clean image to the other kingdoms." Jaune took another sip as everyone at the table gave him weird looks.

"Was that sarcasm leader?" Nora asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Honestly?" Jaune responded, "I'm not really sure myself."

Before anyone else could respond to that remark, both Ren and Yang came out carrying trays of food, "Breakfast est servi!" Yang cheered as she set down several plates of waffles, pancakes and sandwiches with the accompanying maple syrup, honey and ketchup. Nora and Ruby immediately began digging into them wholeheartedly while Weiss levelled a somewhat disgusted look at the both of them.

Neither paid attention.

Jaune himself picked out several sandwiches, knowing that Nora and Ruby would devour the lion's share of the pancakes and waffles.

"Yeah and I'm the queen of Vale." Yang rolled her eyes; Jaune barely stopped himself from choking.

"Right, you'd be a horrible queen anyway." Weiss scoffed.

"Excuse me?" Yang folded her arms, "I'd be an awesome queen! I'd have all the men falling over me, I'd beat up the bad guys in front of my people every day and they'd be cheering for more, I'd drink the hardiest men under and over the table, they'd love me!"

"What does any of that matter? A queen should have a certain grace, a certain poise, elegance, charm and control." Weiss broke out her highborn tone of voice, "Jaune would know right?" She looked at the resident Armorican.

"Sure thing Weiss." He nodded, Weiss gave a triumphant look.

"See? Even Jaune agrees with me, I'm sure I'd make a brilliant queen if I were given the chance." Weiss nodded.

"I'm pretty sure you'd just yell at anyone who got on your nerves." Jaune deadpanned and sipped from his tea as Yang burst out laughing and Blake smirked widely. Weiss directed a sharp look at Jaune.

"How dare you, I-" Weiss stopped herself and grit her teeth together when she realized she had taken the bait again.

"See? You're already learning to control yourself, am I not the kindest of teachers? Who gives his students hands-on lessons and endless opportunities to improve themselves?" Jaune gave a very smug smile as Weiss clawed her temper back down.

They settled into a comfortable silence as they began eating, eventually Pyrrha joined them, having fixed herself properly and giving not a single indication of her usual sleeping habits. She exchanged a knowing smile with Jaune as she took her usual place beside him.

Sometime later, after breakfast was finished, after Nora and Ruby had been done fighting each other over the last few waffles and pancakes, after the stall had mostly been cleaned out of food and after Ren and Yang had finished cleaning up everything.

They were finally in Vale, looking around as flags and streamers and banners were being set up with words welcoming the people from the kingdoms written all over. All eight walked slowly around, admiring the preparations, although one of them was a little distressed by the current situation.

"What are people going to think I wonder?" Jaune spoke softly so that only Ren could hear it.

"What?" He raised his eyebrows at his leader.

"We're two guys in a group with six other girls, _what_ are people going to think?" Jaune whispered quietly.

Ren nodded as he watched the group of girls in front of him, while he had never been uncomfortable with the prospect, sometimes he wondered if he was ever going to be able to have any other male friends besides Jaune. In fact now that he thought about it, while he only had Nora to contend with, Jaune on the other hand was frequently interacting with all the rest of the girls, not even including the Beacon staff. Talking with Ruby, drinking tea with Weiss, reading with Blake in the library, flirting with Yang, training with Pyrrha…

He found it rather amusing somehow.

Still, despite Jaune's complete ease with being around so many members of the opposite sex, it seemed he wanted out for once.

"What do you have in mind?" Ren asked.

"I saw an arcade back down the street, you wanna go?" Jaune nudged him, Ren thought about it, as much as he wanted some time to get away from them…

"Can't, Nora will just follow us," Ren replied.

"Oh right, forgot about that." Jaune sighed.

"The Vytal Festival! Oh, this is absolutely wonderful!" Both their attentions were drawn to Weiss's sudden remark. She was waving her arms in amazement and had a brilliant smile on her face.

Ruby frowned a little on hearing this, ""I don't think I've ever seen you smile this much, Weiss, you're weirding me out..."

Weiss spun around to face Ruby, "How could you not smile? A festival dedicated to the cultures of the world! There will be dances! Parades! A tournament! Oh, the amount of planning and organization that goes into this event is simply breathtaking!" She was practically squealing in delight as they continued on.

"I'm can't tell if you're more interested in the festival, or the due process of it." Jaune scoffed.

"Well you know Weiss, take the most exciting thing and make it as boring as possible." Yang shrugged.

"Oh be quiet you two!" Weiss turned her nose up and continued on. Soon the entire group had reached the docks.

"Hey why are we at the docks? It really stinks here," Nora waved her hand in front of her face, "can we go somewhere else?"

"Yeah, how'd we get here anyway? Weren't we supposed to be checking out the preparations for the Vytal Festival?" Ruby asked as she pinched her nose shut. Even Pyrrha and Ren seemed rather put off by the smell, Blake seemed to be enjoying it though, and was taking in deep breaths.

"What? No fishy smell puns Yang?" Jaune asked.

"Well the smell is really _fishing_ me up if that's what you're asking." Yang rolled her eyes, Jaune snorted at that.

"Well in answer to your questions, we're here because I heard that students visiting from Vacuo will be arriving by ship today. And, as a representative of Beacon, I feel as though it is my solemn duty to welcome them to this fine kingdom!" She spread her arms out wide; Jaune and Yang traded a questioning glance with raised eyebrows.

"What she means is that she wants to spy on them so she'll have the upper hand in the tournament." Blake deadpanned.

"You can't prove that!" Weiss scoffed and folded her arms.

"Hey what's that over there?" Nora gestured over to a curious sight. A shop down the street had its window shattered with its door taped over with yellow caution tape, at the same time a pair of detectives from the Vale Police Force could be seen writing things down on a notepad. Curious the entire group made their way over to the sight.

"What happened?" Ruby asked.

"Robbery. The second dust shop that was hit this week. I swear this place is turning into a jungle." The first detective shook his head and walked over to his partner.

"Well that's crappy." Yang sighed.

"It's apparently a fairly recent trend; multiple shops have been hit over the last few months." Pyrrha suddenly said, everyone turned to her, "I read it in the news." She said.

"Who needs that much dust anyway?" The first detective said.

"I dunno, an army maybe?" The second detective responded.

"White Fang?" That got Jaune's attention among other things.

"Yeah we're not paid enough to deal with this shit."

" _That_ bunch of _bloody terrorists_ again." Jaune hissed in a very angry tone as he looked over the destruction, it surprised everyone greatly, rarely was Jaune anything but polite, calm and well-mannered, he almost never got angry at anyone or anything for that matter.

"Jaune? Are you-" Pyrrha reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder, Jaune seemed to ignore it though.

"What a rotten cancer they are, they speak of freedom and equality, and yet their relentlessness steals the hearts of innocent men, women and children alike. Arrogance matched only by their capacity for violence." Jaune spat in an incredibly poetic tone, no one knew what to think about it. They knew Jaune had a capacity for poetic eloquence, but it was usually something fairly benign.

To hear something so dark was new to them.

Blake did her best to conceal her growing consternation and hid at the back of the group.

"Huh, well I guess I couldn't have been the only one who hates the white fang." Weiss folded her arms.

"Hate huh…?" A positively vicious smile crossed Jaune's face, "What'd they ever do to you?"

Weiss seemed rather put off by his expression, but was nevertheless about to respond when the group was interrupted by a commotion.

"Hey stop that Faunus!" A man shouted, the group's attention shifted to the docks, where a blonde boy with a yellow monkey tail was running about a boat, he jumped off and onto the dock laughing.

"Thanks for the ride guys!" He waved at them and continued running.

"You no-good stowaway!" Another person on the boat shouted at him.

Hey! A no-good stowaway would've been caught! I'm a great stowaway!" He grinned and jumped on to a lamppost and while hanging from it with his tail, he peeled back a banana and began eating it. He was stopped when one of the detectives picked up a stone from the ground and hurled it at him

"Hey! Get down from there this instant!" The detective shouted, the boy rolled his eyes and dropped the banana peel on the detectives face before jumping off the lamppost and continuing to run, in doing so he ran right past the group of eight hunters-in-training.

Giving a small wink to Blake as he ran by.

"He certainly doesn't lack for theatrics." Jaune flatly noted.

"Well there the competition goes," Yang noted airily, "Hope you're happy now Weiss."

"Quickly Pyrrha," Jaune turned to his partner who looked at him with confusion.

" _Throw_ something at him before he gets away." Pyrrha smirked and shook her head in resignation.

"Oh I don't know Jaune, I met accidentally _kill_ him or something." She responded smoothly, Jaune looked shocked, but recovered from the comeback with his own.

"My oh my Ms. Nikos," He smirked and leaned on one leg with his arms folded, "Is that bloodlust of yours acting up again? I'd better be careful now."

Pyrrha stood her ground, in the time she had known Jaune he endlessly enjoyed teasing and occasionally laughing at her, and she _enjoyed_ _it_. She was no masochist but the feeling of normality it gave her felt really good and so she had let most of it slide with good cheer. But now she knew most of his jokes and taunts, and was more than willing to ply him back in the same way with which he plied her.

"Well Mr. Arc, perhaps you'd like to take this to the arena, I'm sure we could give each other a good working over?" Both laughed at this.

Pyrrha knew of course that she had said it in jest, but she did wish he would give her a proper "working over". Notice her more or something; his attention was frequently divided up between all sorts of things at Beacon –the other girls notwithstanding- even though he did spend quite a lot of time with them regardless.

"Should we go after them leader?" Nora gestured to Team RWBY disappearing in the distance, chasing after the monkey Faunus.

"Nah leave them to it, let's just go ahead and enjoy ourselves, but first things first," Jaune held up a finger, "let's get away from here before the smell starts clinging to our clothes." The rest all nodded immediately and made their way out of the area.

"Well I need to go get some things for the food stall, so I'll leave the two of you to it." Ren nodded at

"Yay! Let's go Renny! To the bakery!"

"We can't only have food from the bakery Nora, it would…" Jaune chuckled as he watched the duo disappear into the distance…

Leaving him with his crimson partner.

"Well, what do you want to do?" Jaune turned to her and asked.

"Well I was thinking we could just spend the day together, doing whatever you want." Pyrrha said airily.

"Fine then, there was an arcade back down there some ways, shall we?" Jaune held out his hand and smiled brightly.

"Lead the way Jaune." Pyrrha returned the smile.

 _What a strange turn of events this is, though I can't say I'm complaining…_ Pyrrha thought happily as she followed Jaune.

They spent the rest of the day wiling their time –and lien it should be noted- away within the arcade. Eventually though, it began to get dark and so Jaune called a halt to their activities, Ren had already notified the two that they were heading back to the dorm first with their shopping list complete, and the knight and the champion returned on their own as it was getting dark and the sun was setting, Jaune deviated his course to get to a nearby toilet and told Pyrrha to meet him back at the dorm.

As he walked down the hallway to his room, he ears perked up on hearing some rather loud yet muffled shouting coming from Team RWBY's room.

 _Well there's a strange commotion in RWBY's room, probably best not to-_. Suddenly the door to RWBY's dorm exploded and Blake ran out at full speed, so fast that she ran right into Jaune who caught himself and her just in time to prevent the both of them from falling to the floor.

Blake's eyes widened in fear upon seeing Jaune.

"Blake? What's going on?" Jaune asked, without bothering to respond Blake pushed right by him and continued running as fast as she could. Jaune considered chasing her for a moment before Ruby's voice sounded out.

"Blake, wait! Come back!" Ruby appeared at the door to her bunk and looked down the hallway.

"Did something happen? Blake just ran down that way." Jaune jerked his thumb in the direction down the hall behind him.

"Oh yeah…err…well…" Ruby scratched her head and gave an awkward look as Jaune walked up to her and peered into the dorm, seeing Weiss looking down at the floor and Yang seated down.

"You gals have a fight or something?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Uh…Something like that…?" Ruby swallowed nervously, remembering Jaune's earlier reaction to learning about the White Fang.

Yang seemed to have the same realization when she saw Jaune at the doorway, "Yeah Jaune, just some girl stuff thing that's all, nothing for you to worry about." She did her best to smile and nod while making furtive glances at Weiss, "Right Weiss?" The heiress remained silent and continued staring at the floor.

"…Right…I see…well I'll leave you to sort it out then." Jaune made to leave when Weiss finally spoke.

"The nerve! Can you believe it? A White Fang member right here in Beacon?" Weiss growled out of the blue, Yang shot her a shocked look before looking at Jaune with a nervous expression.

"Weiss!" Ruby shouted, but it was too late for that, far too late.

The temperature verily dropped in the surrounding area.

"What…" Jaune turned to glare at Weiss, who took a step back uncertainly.

"Did…" He clenched his fists until his knuckles went white.

"You…" He took a step towards the rapidly shrinking heiress.

"Say…?" He hissed out every word, Ruby and Yang backed away. Weiss on the other hand was trapped by Jaune and was beginning to sweat with her knees knocking together.

* * *

 **Ho ho ho, Blake's sure going to be in hot water, Jaune's probably not going to handle learning that she was once a part of the White Fang well.**

 **This omake is pretty dumb I admit, but I was struggling to think of anything remotely Blake related to use and this sorta just came up, so do enjoy.**

* * *

 **Blake the mouser**

One fine day, Weiss was just in her dorm, alone, sitting at her bedside and tending to her nails when she spotted movement out of the corner of her eye, she turned to face it out of curiosity...

Just in time to see a certain small, brown haired rodent dash across the room and under the opposite bed.

A brown note sounded that shook the whole of Beacon Academy to its core.

Ruby was closest and recognized the sound as her partner, with her semblance powered up she was at her dorm within seconds, she threw it open and found Weiss cowering beneath her sheets, staring pointedly across the room.

"Weiss?! What's wrong?! What's the matter?!"

"There's a mouse somewhere!" Weiss squeaked and wrapped the sheets

"...That's it...?" Ruby stared at her partner in disbelief, "You're a huntress Weiss! How on earth can you-" And then that same critter dashed out from underneath the bed.

Beacon was once again rocked by high-pitched scream that threatened to smash windows.

This time, Yang clearly recognized the sound of her own sister and was at the dormitory from the training area faster than you can say "Xiao Long have you been waiting for?"

"I"M HERE RUBY! WHAT IS IT?!" Yang literally exploded through the door.

"Help us sis!" Ruby cried out.

"There's a monster in this dorm!" Weiss nodded frantically, Yang cocked an eyebrow.

"What mons-" Something scurried right across her foot.

For the third time that day, Beacon was shaken by the unmistakable scream of a young woman.

Elsewhere, Jaune and Blake were in the library quietly reading, Jaune looked up from his book titled, _Crowning Glory: A History of the House of Vale by Dr. B. Oobleck_

"Your team seems rather lively today." He deadpanned, Blake sighed and stood up.

"I'll go see what's the problem." She growled out.

"Send me pictures!" Jaune called out behind her, she resisted flipping him off.

By this point, Blake had had enough of all the noises endlessly disturbing her peace, and recognizing the last cry as coming from her partner, she quickly made her way to her dorm.

To find all three of her team cowering beneath their sheets.

"...Wha...?" She gaped at all of them.

"Blake!" Yang called...no... _yelled_ out.

"What's the matter with all of you now?" Blake asked, wondering if she wanted to know the answer.

"There's this big furry monster hiding beneath your bed!" Ruby called out.

"And I'm not afraid or anything, but I don't want to get dirty so would kindly help us out?" Weiss said quickly, Blake continued staring at all of them.

"Alright so what is this monster?" She pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head.

"It's under your bed!...I think..." Yang cowered even deeper into her sheets.

"Right sure..." Blake got on her knees and peered under her bed, her eyes widened momentarily before she rolled them, brought her arm back, and with one well timed shot, snatched the critter up and stood up before the whole dorm.

"Is this the issue?" Blake held up the small, struggling mouse by its tail and gave the other three an unamused look.

"Well I guess I'll just dispose of this somewhere..." She turned and walked out of the dorm.

"Let's just agree that it was a big mouse." Weiss said quickly.

"Definitely." Yang agreed.

"SUPER-big mouse." Ruby nodded her head rapidly.

* * *

 **Yeah kinda dumb I know, still the FNDM harps on a lot about Blake's obsession with fish, reading smutty literature and doing all sorts of cat things.**

 **Except hunting mice.**

 **C'mon that's like the most obvious thing that cats do!**

 **I appreciate all your reviews, faves and follows.**

* * *

 **And on a completely different note, how would some of you feel if I tried to write a fanfic about Pyrrha's past featuring all sorts of Greco-roman mythological references? It would be styled like the flashback sequences of the first bunch of chapters as Pyrrha's old mentor -now a professor at Haven Academy- tells Team RNJR about her past. This fic would eschew any of the normal V4 prediction fics by being solely focused on this topic in particular, and would also focus a lot on the various people in Pyrrha's life before Vale. Meaning OCs up the wazoo of course.**

 **Main characters would include Team ABRN (who rarely get mentioned in any of the V4 prediction fics going around) and a whole list of OCs based on Greco-roman mythology.**


	12. Blake-tastrophe

**Catastrophe - Cat-tastrophe - Blake-tastrophe in case anyone was wondering how it worked.**

 **If I'm honest, not overly proud of this chapter, probably a couple of things I'm sure I could've done better...**

 **But I think it was alright, chapter is much shorter than usual.**

 **Do enjoy!**

* * *

Teams RW(B)Y and JNPR remained silent as they ate their food quietly, or least six of them were.

Jaune was looking down and glaring at his teacup, every so often his eye would twitch; it had only been a day since the little incident but he had not been on speaking terms with _anyone_ since learning that Blake had once been a White Fang member.

"Jaune…are you-?" Pyrrha started and tried to place her hand on Jaune's shoulder, to her surprise he pulled away and got out of his seat.

"Go on without me, I…need to be alone." He stated simply with a dead voice as he took his cup and walked away from the rest of the group.

"…Well shit." Yang remarked as she watched Jaune walking away, she turned to Weiss and said, "What the hell were you thinking blurting it out like that?" She folded her arms and gave a stern look.

"What do mean what was I thinking? I didn't even realize he had entered the room!" Weiss protested.

"You didn't realize? I was trying to get your attention!" Yang pointed out.

"Er, guys?" Ruby tried but both sides blithely ignored her.

"Well I'm sorry but weren't _you_ shocked on learning that little piece of news?" Weiss glared at Yang.

"Oh sure I was, but I didn't completely lose my presence of mind on learning it!" Yang shot back.

"Everyone stop!" Ruby finally shouted and made everyone turn their heads to regard her.

"What matters is that we need to figure out what to do now, Blake didn't return last night and Jaune is probably going to kill her if she does so…" Ruby paused and took a breath, "let's put our heads together and try to fix this problem and not start fighting amongst ourselves now ok?" She looked around the table to see nods of agreement.

"Let's start looking in Vale itself; she can't have gone far…" Yang said.

"And Jaune?" Ruby looked at the team who shifted back and forth nervously.

"We'll keep watch over him." Ren nodded.

"Yeah! You can count on us Ruby!" Nora smiled.

"Ok so today we'll go look for her in Vale, hopefully we'll be lucky and it'll be quick!"

* * *

 _ **A few days later…**_

No such luck, despite going around all of Vale and crying out her name endlessly from the start of the day until the sun began to set, and asking all around if anyone had seen her with the help of a photo, the next few days passed by without any sign of the aloof, dark-haired girl.

In the meantime, Jaune spoke little and ate little, all of what once was thought to be his normal cheer and politeness was lost, while he never went so far as to push away any of his team's attempts to speak to him away, he blithely ignored all of them, even when Nora nearly tried to lightly 'tap' him with Magnhild and had to be restrained by both Pyrrha and Ren before she hurt Jaune.

And then one morning, he promptly disappeared from their dorm before any of them had even awoken. No message was left behind, no trace as to where he might potentially have gone. In a panic, Pyrrha called up Ruby.

 _Come on come on pick up your scroll!_ Pyrrha bit her lower lip and paced back and forth throughout their dorm with Ren and Nora watching,

"Pyrrha?" Ruby's voice came over the scroll.

"Ruby!" Pyrrha practically shouted.

"Oh hey, what's up? How's Jaune-"

"Jaune's missing!" Pyrrha interrupted, "He's gone!"

"What do you mean gone? How-"

"I mean he's gone Ruby! There's no note or message or anything, he disappeared before any of us were awake!"

"Oh…err…well that's…we'll keep a lookout for him."

"Please do, we'll be down to Vale as soon as we can!" Pyrrha hurriedly said before she hung up.

"We should probably get moving before our leader does something he regrets!" Nora nodded her head back and forth.

"I'm more worried he _won't_ regret it." Ren sighed and rubbed his forehead.

All three exchanged determined glances, they would definitely find their leader no matter what it took.

While Team (J)NPR rushed for the next bullhead into Vale, their leader was skulking about with his head drawn to the ground while he walked along a crowded street in the middle of Vale city, still mulling over the recent revelation and what he was going to do about it.

 _I need to find Blake._ Jaune thought to himself.

 _And do what? Kill her?_ His thoughts seemed to bite right back at him.

 _No, I just…_ Jaune grimaced, _I need to talk to her._ He tried to calm himself down

 _About what? What is there to talk about? Isn't she White Fang? Wouldn't she have been involved in what happened two years ago?_ When had he gotten so introspective about himself?

 _No, I don't know that, I…_

 _Don't you hate them anymore? Have you already forgiven what they did to you? To your family?_

"No," Jaune spoke softly, "But Blake is…Blake is…"

 _What? What is Blake to me? A friend? An enemy? A passing acquaintance? I don't know anymore…_

 _You've fought together, bonded together, doesn't that make you…_

 _Fought together…_

All of a sudden Jaune was reminded of something, and so he took out his scroll and flicked through some of the photos, eventually coming upon the one that he was looking for.

Their initiation picture.

All eight of them together in one big group, smiling, smirking and grinning mouths adorning each of their tired faces with the Manticore decaying behind them. He remembered reading some of the comments that had been made on the Rem-net when the picture had become a temporary sensation.

 _A team of colors beat a colorless monster, how fitting  
except for that weird girl with the bow_

 _What a bunch of BAMFs_

 _Holy crap imagine what they'll be when they graduate_

 _I know beacon uses teams of four, but these guys need to be a team of eight!_

"Team huh?" A small smile crossed his face. He continued flicking through the pictures, and came across another one, this one made him give a small laugh, it was a selfie he had taken when Blake had fallen asleep on his shoulder, there he was with a stupid grin on his face while Blake peacefully snoozed at his side.

"Well…besides," Jaune smirked to himself, as he returned his scroll to his pocket, "I still have to find out what type of Faunus she is, she's totally gotta be a cat with that bow."

 _But where the hell am I going to start from?_ He wondered as he continued walking around aimlessly. He had absolutely no idea how to start finding the resident Faunus-in-hiding.

As the day wore on endlessly, Jaune drifted from one place to another in Vale, walking endlessly without any real purpose, and before he knew it, the sun was starting to get low, shadows were starting to fade and darkness began creeping in. A fishy smell crept up his nose, and he realized that without really knowing it, he had found his way back to the docks area from the beginning of that day.

 _How ironic, I'm right back here, where it all started._ He thought sadly as he turned to walk away.

A loud explosion caught his attention.

He jumped and turned his head to the sound, "What was that?" He watched as smoke began rising from the docking area a short distance away, "I'd better go see what's happening." With his sword ready for any trouble, Jaune rushed towards the sound.

As he approached, sounds of people fighting grew louder and louder, metal clashing against metal, the grunting and growling of blows being traded. He hid behind a shipping crate as the sounds reached their peak and peered around them.

Just in time to watch a red-haired man with a bowler hat use his cane to knock Blake down and point the tip of his cane pointed right at her.

"Blake!" A voice shouted out, it was the monkey Faunus from a few days back, his voice caused a momentary distraction, giving Jaune the opening he needed.

 _I won't lose anything else!_ Jaune thought fiercely, but he was still a short distance away though, and so thinking quickly, he grabbed his dagger from his belt and gave it his best range guess.

"Hey!" Jaune shouted and hurled his dagger at Roman and ran right at the criminal just before he could pull the trigger, startled, both Roman and Blake turned and looked at Jaune, Roman quickly moved his cane and deflected the dagger to the side just as Jaune came running in with an upward blow.

Roman blocked it, Jaune continued with an upward blow and locked his sword with Roman's cane, with a mighty shove he pushed him away from Blake and sent Roman stumbling back.

"Are you alright?" He barely gave a glance at Blake, who was completely shocked at his arrival.

"Oh lookie, is it the knight-in-shining-armor come to save his girl?" Roman sarcastically remarked as he prepared himself.

"Handle the White Fang; I've got this bowl of fruit." Jaune nodded to Blake; stunned as she was she seemed to understand what he meant and dashed away to face her former organization.

"Ho ho ho, and what're you going to do?" Roman laughed, "Prepare thyself evildoer, for it is I! Sir Muffykins! Who shalt _smite_ thee down in the name of righteousness!" He mocked.

"No, although it does sound very appealing," Jaune replied, "or you could just stand there while I beat your womanly ass down and into the stockade." He smiled.

"Hey it's Roman Torchwick! _Roman Torchwick_! I'm a man!" Roman shouted back indignantly, "And I don't intend to go to your stockade, whatever that's supposed to be anyway."

"Your mascara says otherwise." Jaune pointed out.

"It's fashionable."

"It's _fashionably_ stupid."

"Why you-!" Roman narrowed his eyes angrily and levelled his cane, that was it, this smug kid was _so_ going down no matter what it took.

"Bring it happy feet!" Roman started firing, Jaune ducked and rolled as containers behind him exploded into metal fragments; with a swing of his sword he was just able to deflect one away from a direct hit sending it careening away and exploding when it hit the ground.

"Oh just die already." Roman growled and to Jaune's surprise, he suddenly aimed upwards and fired a shot, hitting the crane holding up a shipping container that was right above Jaune, Jaune dashed forward

"HEY!" a familiar voice sounded.

"Oh what the fuck is it now?!" Roman swore loudly and spun to regard the voice as Jaune stood up

"Well, hello, Red! Isn't it way past your bedtime tonight?" Roman sarcastically remarked and waved at Ruby, even Jaune was surprised, how had the red reaper found them anyway? Beside her was a strange girl with orange hair looking over them curiously.

"Identifying!" Penny suddenly shouted, "VIP in imminent danger! Multiple threats detected! _Prince Jean of Armorica_ is in trouble! Hold on your highness I'm coming!" Penny suddenly shouted.

"Huh? What? Prince? Your highness?" Ruby's looked back and forth between Penny and the battle ahead of them in confusion.

"What?" Jaune was momentarily stunned, hearing his real name get called out like that.

"Hey hey! Is it time for distractions already?" Jaune turned his head back just in time to roll away from another shot from Roman's cane, Roman then switched targets and fired off another shot in Ruby's direction.

"Ruby!" Jaune called out.

A little too late, Ruby let out a loud cry as her scythe flew from her hands.

"This unit is combat-ready!" Penny glared at the White Fang troopers, and then something incredible happened.

Her backpack opened up and numerous strange blades flew out from it, with that done she leapt from the rooftop and began carving a path through the White Fang troopers, throwing them helter skelter, making a beeline for the endangered prince. Endlessly pushing through and jumping over obstacles and any attempts to halt her advance as the White Fang desperately tried to regroup and concentrate their efforts against this new arrival.

" _Holy crap_." Sun remarked as he dodged out of the way of the rampaging android and ran to safety with Blake on his heels.

 _What did Penny just say? Did she just call Jaune a prince?_ She thought to herself, she shook her thoughts away; there would be time for clarifying that little note.

Meanwhile Jaune continued facing Roman, "…I'm so going to gut you and hang you up by your entrails on the nearest lamppost for all of Vale to see for that." Jaune shot a dark glare at Roman as he readied himself for another round of combat.

"…Have you no shame kid?" Roman looked absolutely disgusted.

"Of course I do." Jaune nonchalantly waved his hand.

"I'm pretty _ashamed_ of you as a fellow Valean for starters." Jaune deadpanned.

Pin-drop silence.

"And I'm sure the rest of Vale would agree, why would any kingdom want to be known via some mascara wearing, cane-toting, bowler hat spinning burglar _lowlife_ who probably spends his days in a dark room wringing his hands over evil schemes to rob the purses of old ladies and topple the ice cream cones of small children."

Everyone had completely stopped fighting, hunters, androids and White Fang troopers alike stared at the confrontation, the night was still and not a sound was heard, not a peep or squeak. It was as if the entirety of Remnant had halted itself in its tracks for that one moment in time _just_ to listen to the entire stinging barrage of insults that a simple hunter-in-training/prince-in-hiding had promptly delivered to a certain criminal, the growing expression and reaction on that criminal's face only served to sell the sheer ridiculousness of the scene. A mere hunter-in-training/prince-in-hiding had without a moment's hesitation while facing one of Remnant's most notorious criminals, slammed his fist on every last button to push on Roman Torchwick. It was so unbelievable that no one reacted for the longest time.

Ruby reacted first.

"OOOOOOOHHHHHHH SNAP!" Her voice rang out across the docks.

Penny was next.

"My humor senses indicate that evacuation to the nearest burn center is the _optimal_ course of action!" She cheered.

"Kid," Roman growled dangerously, "You are _so_ _dead_."

" _Looking forward to it_." Jaune shot back with a smirk.

And with that, battle was joined in earnest once again. As Roman fought to try and create and opening to let him escape the already lost battle, Jaune fought to pin him down for the arrival of reinforcements, Penny was gaining on them by the second.

At that moment, a trio of bullheads dropped out of the sky and opened fired on the surrounding area, Jaune rolled away as Roman stepped back from the barrage of cannon fire.

"That's my ride, sorry kid it's been fun but I've gotta go now." Roman shrugged and immediately disengaged and turned to run…just as Penny tore two right out of the sky with her flying swords.

"Get back here!" Jaune shouted angrily and chased after him.

"Get lost kid! I've had it up to here with you!" Roman spun around and fired his last few shots at Jaune. Jaune threw up his sword to deflect the first shot…which detonated right as it contacted his blade, throwing him off balance; he grabbed his shield and righted himself, unfortunately the shield was small and could not block the full force of the explosion of the second shot, throwing him back some more.

 _Goddamnit! If only I had a bigger shield, and a longer sword, if I could just…! If only I could…_ Jaune screamed in his head as another shot forced him to kneel on the ground. He forced himself to stand and swung his sword to try to deflect another shot…

 _If a stronger sword you wish…_ A voice seemed to say.

 _If a stronger shield you wish…_ It continued.

An explosion.

A sound of metal shattering.

Jaune hit the floor as a fragment of his blade-sheathe flew right in his face and knocked him over. He cried out in pain and looked at his sword, and was stunned by what he saw.

The blade of Crocea Mors was fully exposed, the white blade-sheathe lay in pieces all around him, and yet something was different about the sword that he now held in his hand, it did not appear at all like the sword that he used to spar against his partner with, that somewhat short, broad and simple blade that tore gashes into his partner's weapon, the blue handle with the yellow pommel and guard. No what was in his hand was most definitely not that.

In his hand was a gleaming longsword, the blade extending to the same length that the blade-sheathe had made Crocea Mors. The handle was now a much darker shade of blue and extended farther down to accommodate a two-handed grip better than the original sword. Both the guard and the pommel were now a silvery shine, the guard curved and extended longer than before, the pommel was wider as well.

"Wha…?" Jaune could only stare in shock at his destroyed blade-sheathe…and the new sword he held in his hand.

"See ya around kid." Roman smirked as he squeezed the trigger to fire one last shot.

And then Jaune was not at the docks anymore.

He was on an empty, flat, wind-swept plain of green grass, in front of him, a man with a crossbow aimed right at him. The man squeezed the trigger and fired a shot.

This time, knowing what was –probably- happening, Jaune made no effort to try and resist or struggle, instead he tried his best to follow along as he let himself be guided by strange memories that were not his knowing that they would lead him as far as they could to victory. Jaune pulled his arm back and swung his sword downward, the bolt was cleaved in half as it approached him.

The next bolt came in, and this time Jaune brought up his shield.

 _A shield is not meant for the purpose of merely blocking attacks, it is meant to deflect attacks._

He held the shield at an angle, allowing the bolt to harmlessly bounce off of it.

"WHAT?!" Roman's shocked voice brought him out of his vision. Roman was standing there with a completely dumbfounded expression on his face. When he squeezed the trigger again, his cane went *CLICK* and his expression changed into a more shocked one.

Jaune smirked, now he had the upper hand.

He raced forward at full speed, putting all of his available strength into his legs as he brought his sword up for an overhead blow, Roman quickly raised his cane up with both hands to try and block it…

And then something incredible happened.

As the blade of Crocea Mors contacted with the middle of Roman's cane, it proceeded to slice through…and through the cane cleanly. Roman stumbled back in shock, holding both parts of his cane in his hands; he was so stunned by the occurrence that he almost did not notice Jaune reverse his swing to slash right at Roman's face, Roman jumped back to avoid it…

But not fast enough.

A scream rang out across the docks, Roman stumbled back, clutching his left eye with blood running down his face, while he had stepped back just enough to avoid being completely torn in half by the attack, it was not quite enough to dodge the full range of the attack. Jaune gave a vicious smirk on seeing his opponent almost down for the count; he moved in to finish Roman off, confident that that was all that remained to do.

But Roman was no stranger to pain, and certainly no stranger to having plans get ruined, no plan survived first contact with the Vale Police Force anyway, that was what backups were for.

As Jaune charged forward, Roman mentally forced the pain back and pulled out his hidden gun, a small revolver hidden at his thigh and emptied it in Jaune's direction, all six shots were fired off wildly.

Jaune halted in his tracks just as he saw the gun come out, with no time to take his shield, he raised his sword in an attempt to block the shots, thanks to the wild firing only three ended up hitting Jaune due to the close range, one bounced off his sword, another grazed his right forearm guard.

The last impacted his chest piece dead center.

The shot was blocked, but the force knocked the wind out of Jaune and sent him falling back to the ground on his back gasping in pain, as he struggled to get up Roman ran for it.

"Retreat you idiots! We can't fight all of them!" He shouted out.

"Damn him!" Jaune struggled to his feet, every breath hurting his chest as he looked up just in time to see Roman jump onto the last bullhead and hightail it out of there just in time as the strange girl wiped out another bullhead.

Both men exchanged a dark glare as Roman closed the doors.

Jaune furrowed his brow and looked around him, the docks had received quite a lot of damage in the course of their struggle, bullet holes and craters pockmarked the entire area along with the pained moans and groans of numerous White Fang troopers lying on the ground and holding onto to their various wounds, he walked up to one and looked down at him.

His mask was still on but the leg he was holding had clearly been smashed up pretty badly, there were also various cuts and bruises all over him with his uniform clearly torn up and ruined.

He growled as Jaune approached him with a curious look on his face, "damn you humans! You should all just go to hell."

Jaune did not respond at first, his mind in a daze and working through a thought process.

 _They're all down…_

 _They're weak, they won't resist…_

 _Shouldn't I kill them…?_

 _Yes, while they can't do anything!_

 _It'll be quick won't it?_

 _Just a swift stab and…_

 _For all the lives they took…_

Jaune gripped Crocea Mors tightly and held it over the trooper's head, "You first, _bloody_ _terrorist_."

"Jaune!" A voice broke him out of his trance; he shook his head and was surprised to find himself looking down at the White Fang trooper who was maintaining a defiant look behind his mask.

"Jaune!" He turned his head to see Ruby with a pleading expression on her face.

"Jaune I…I don't know what the White Fang did to you, but please don't… don't kill them ok? I know you're not a killer alright? Please Jaune?" Ruby had her hands balled into fists at her side with a shaky expression on her face. She would be damned before she saw her first friend at Beacon become a killer.

"Go ahead human! Do it! Prove to everyone that there will never be equality!" The trooper smirked.

"No Jaune, just put down the sword!" Ruby pleaded.

"DO IT!"

"PUT IT DOWN!"

With a loud cry Jaune slammed the sword right…

Into the ground beside the trooper's head.

Ruby's eyes went wide, and she saw what Jaune did and let out a breath she did not know she had been holding, a small smile graced her lips as Jaune backed off a little…

"You pathetic weakling." The trooper laughed out, Jaune's eyes narrowed for a split second before he lunged back towards the trooper.

"JAUNE NO!" Ruby rushed forward to hold Jaune back, she caught him just as the pommel of the sword came down hard on the trooper's head and knocked him clean out, both hunters-in-training staggered back. Ruby was surprised, but pleased and smiled at Jaune as he sheathed his sword; it was then that he realized he was holding a much larger shield to accommodate the longer sword. The smaller heater shield had been replaced with a much larger kite shield, the mechanism was still the same though, and so he sheathed his sword and closed his shield.

"Death would be too good for you," he said, "You'll be tried and sent to jail where you can rot for the rest of your life." He said determinedly, although a part of him still demanded that he take his sword back up and hack the trooper to the marrow.

"Thanks Jaune." Ruby looked a little better now, just then Penny dropped in.

"All hostiles have been rendered combat ineffective, you're safe now your highness!" She spoke cheerily, Jaune gaped at her.

"How the heck do you know I'm a…" He stopped himself before he let the last word loose.

"Prince from the House of Vale?" Penny completed, "I have knowledge of every important VIP on Remnant, as well as the assurance of having each and every one of their safeties as my top priority in the event of a dangerous situation!" She continued on with a smile.

"Err Jaune?" Ruby twiddled her thumbs nervously; this was a whole new revelation to take in.

At first, it had started off with Blake being a former White Fang member.

And now Jaune was a prince?

What was next? Was someone secretly a robot or something?

"First things first, we need to look for Blake." He shook it off, "Hey Blake where are you?" Jaune called out as he looked around for her, Ruby hung her head, unsure of what to do.

At the moment, aforementioned person was hiding behind a stack of crates with Sun, "I need to go." Blake made to run when Sun caught her.

"What're you doing? Isn't he your friend?" Sun asked, Blake gave him a pained expression.

"I don't think I can be his friend anymore…not after…" She trailed off and had a rather shameful look on her face.

"Blake if you run now," Jaune hissed out, "I don't care how long it takes, or _what_ it takes. I _will_ chase you down." Ruby gave him a stunned look as he took a deep breath.

"So please stay a while and listen to what I have to say won't you?" He gave a weak smile.

Everyone took a hard swallow.

Except for Penny, she merely tilted her head quizzically.

* * *

 **Oh Penny...why did you have to? It didn't always seem to me like this was the best opportunity to reveal it, but I didn't want some overly dramatic big reveal to everyone, I wanted to sorta start small first, let a couple of characters have it first. (In this case, Ruby, Blake and Sun)**

 **Fight scene could probably have been better, I think maybe Jaune could've intervened at a different time? I'm not so sure about that part.**

 **And for those expecting Jaune to go mad and carve a bloodbath through the docks, sorry no, the story isn't supposed to be that dark, sorry for that disappointment.**

 **Next chapter will mark the end of "V1" in this AU**

 **As for the omake, its a WWII AU RWBY! Based on a pun that I came up with immediately after finishing the last one.**

 **Presenting!**

* * *

 **Blake the mauser**

Sergeant Jaune Arc paused for a moment and looked over the ditch filled with dead German corpses, torn and tattered bodies lying in twisted positions, some of them still had their eyes wide open, staring up into the sky or down into the dirt, it was a sickening sight, but after three years of fighting from frontline to frontline across the North African desert and the Italian mountains, it did not really faze him anymore.

Something caught his eye though, right there, lying in the dirt. A German made Kar 98K rifle, to Jaune's surprise however, it did not look like most of the other types of rifles that he had see fighting the sour krauts.

This rifle in particular had a matte black finish. A single word was crudely carved into its buttstock.

"BLAKE"

Intrigued, he picked it up and looked it over carefully.

"Watcha got there Jaune-y boy?" Sergeant Cardin Winchester

"Check this thing out." Jaune ran his hand over the length of the rifle before putting his eye to the sight and squinting to look through the gun's ironsights.

"The frame is so smooth and polished, someone went to a lot of effort to take care of this thing." Jaune held it out in front of him to show to Cardin's squad.

"Who the hell is Blake?" Russel laughed.

"Probably the kraut's girlfriend." Dove answered with a nod.

"The butt is nice and firm too, there's even some extra padding at the back," Jaune tapped the butt lightly before he pulled the bolt back, "Looks like there's a few rounds left, let me just fire it off." And so saying he took aim at a nearby tree and pulled the trigger, the gun jumped in his hands as it fired off a shot, Jaune was surprised by the ease by which the recoil was handled. He fired off another shot and waited.

"What's the holdup?" Cardin asked.

"You know me Cardin, I love to savor the moment of the last shot right before I pop the bolt." Jaune grinned and fired off one last shot and emptied the rifle of its final cartridge.

"Whoa that felt good for some reason." Jaune was grinning widely as he brought the rifle down.

"Let me see that." Cardin said and reached for it.

"Hey hands off," Jaune batted Cardin's hands away, "I'm taking _this_ beauty home with me."

* * *

 **Swiggity swooty, Jaune's gotta get that bellabooty!**

 **I appreciate all your reviews, faves and follows!**


	13. You bend or you Blake

**One thing I was incredibly surprised by is the speed at which everyone assumes that Blake…**

 **1\. Was personally involved in the attack**

 **2\. Knew about the attack**

 **3\. Was still with the White Fang when the attack happened.**

 **I'd explain further, but I'll let you run through the chapter first**

* * *

"Blake?!" Jaune called out, "Don't run! Stop hiding! I know you're still here!"

"She's right over there your highness." Penny pointed over to some crates.

"Will you stop calling me that?" Jaune glared at the girl before turning to look at the crates, "Blake? Are you over there? Come on out, don't run anyway from me."

"Of course Prince Jean." Penny nodded, Jaune sighed and rubbed his forehead.

"I mean stop referring to me like I'm royalty." Jaune corrected.

"Understood Jaune!" Penny saluted, meanwhile Ruby was shifting uncomfortably, she had a scythe at the ready, despite all the pleasantries Jaune was exchanging she wanted to be ready for the possibility that Jaune might snap and try to attack Blake. Even if he was a friend…no… _especially_ because he was a close friend, she would definitely stop him if he was going to attack one of her other friends even if it got her injured.

There was also the issue of him being royalty.

"Blake…" Jaune began walking slowly towards the stack of crates, Ruby and Penny followed closely behind with Ruby's hand on Crescent Rose.

At the same time, Blake was agonizing over making a decision, her first instinct was to run for it and never look back, on the other hand…

"Well what're you waiting for?" Sun cocked an eyebrow, he was sitting beside her behind the crates, "It wasn't you right? You said it yourself you don't know of any attack on the royal enclaves right?"

* * *

 _ **Earlier that day,**_

"So... have you told your friends any of this?" Sun asked, Blake looked down shamefully and said nothing for a moment.

"No…" She finally answered, "But…"

"But?"

"But…there is… _was_ one person, who knew I was a Faunus, his name is Jaune Arc, you might have seen him that time at the docks."

"Which one was he? There were like two guys with you gals right?"

"The blonde one."

"Oh, you told him?"

"No, he figured out I was a Faunus from the start, said he could tell because he had Faunus friends as a kid and that he played hide and seek a lot with them." Blake allowed herself a small smile, recalling the events of the night before initiation.

"Well then you should tell him! If he knows you're a Faunus he should understand-"

"NO!" Blake suddenly cried out before realizing that other patrons were staring at her, she quickly calmed down and composed herself as Sun looked quite taken aback by the sudden outburst.

"I mean…" Blake furrowed her brows and sighed, "He _hates_ the White Fang." She said softly, "And he probably knows that I was from the White Fang already, one of my teammates probably told him." She went quiet again.

"You know I thought I had found a real friend in him," She started speaking again, "Someone who saw me for what I was and could understand me, I just…I didn't know he…" Blake stuttered and felt tears well up in her eyes.

"Oh…" Sun gave a look of understanding, "Do you know why he hates the White Fang so much?" Blake shook her head.

"There are any number of attacks that he could have been a victim of, like I said in the last few years the White Fang committed all sorts of terrible acts, although…now that I think about it…" Blake trailed off and looked up into the sky thoughtfully.

"What?"

"He's from Armorica…I don't remember of any operation done in the Royal Enclaves." Blake furrowed her brow.

"He's from the Vale SAR? The land governed by Remnant's only remaining Royal Family?" Sun raised both his eyebrows.

"Yes, he mentioned an attack two years ago…" Blake thought back to the first time they had seen Jaune have a panic attack, "But I don't recall such a thing at all, it must've happened after I left…"

"Then that's fine isn't it?" Sun smiled, "You couldn't have been responsible for it, and you'd already left by that time, so it should be fine right?"

* * *

"I…I _did_ …but…" Blake shuddered a little, "I don't know if he cares about that."

"Yeah, you _don't_ know, so why don't you find out?" Sun quirked an eyebrow, "You're not going to get anywhere if we just keep hiding like this."

"Blake I just want to talk…I…I just need to know something." Jaune cried out one last time.

Blake gave Sun a look, he nodded and gave an encouraging smile.

"Blake if you don't-" Blake shot up and stared right at Jaune.

"I'M SORRY!" She yelled and hung her head; Jaune paused and gave a questioning look.

"I know the White Fang hurt you…and your family, I'm sorry I couldn't stop them." Blake said.

"…What are you-" Jaune was interrupted when Blake started speaking again.

"When the White Fang started turning violent, I knew I couldn't stay with them anymore, so I left and abandoned them, I didn't want any part of that life, and I wanted to make amends for what little I'd done, so I came here, to Beacon, to become a huntress and use my skills for the better." She paused and looked up to face Jaune directly, he had his head tilted quizzically to one side and was watching her intently.

"If…if you want to blame me than that's fine, I know that you don't hate Faunus, so that's good enough, but I want you to know…" Blake breathed in, "I want you to know that I whatever happened to you, I wasn't a part of it." Jaune's expression did not change, so she continued talking, "I would not have targeted innocent men, women and children, not in a country that gives my people the equality and respect they deserve." She finished and everyone waited with baited breath for Jaune's reaction.

He had gone completely quiet, and looked down in quiet contemplation.

"Jaune I-"

"You're not a part of them anymore right?!" Jaune looked at her sharply; he was gripping his sword tightly, "They're not going to matter to you right?"

Blake swallowed hard before she responded, "I…" She took a moment to calm herself down and collect her thoughts, Jaune's gaze focused totally on her as Ruby and Sun watched a little uncomfortably, knowing that the two had to sort it out on their own.

"No, but I promise you I will stop them, I definitely won't allow them to cause any more suffering than they already have." Blake said firmly.

"Then that's…" Jaune took a deep breath, "That's fine…that's fine…" He repeated, almost as though he were reassuring himself.

"I'm not going to ask for your forgiveness, or beg for your mercy, but…" Blake trailed off and closed her eyes, "I-"

"It's alright," it was Jaune's turn to interrupt now, "I'll…if what you say is true…then…I'll take your word for it, there's nothing to forgive you for." Blake looked rather shocked.

"Besides," Jaune cocked a weak smirk, "I personally find begging rather demeaning, it doesn't suit you at all."

"But…why…?" Blake had expected him to yell at her, curse her, at the very least have some angry responses.

"I'm not going to let them take anyone else from me?" Jaune gave a weak smile; Blake's cheeks went a light pink on hearing this, "You're my friend first and foremost Blake, -sure, you're a rather cold, aloof friend- I'll be damned before I let you just go like that."

"I…I…" Blake stuttered, not quite knowing what to say, meanwhile both Ruby and Sun were grinning widely she finally collected herself and managed to say something, "You're…just going to let it go?" Jaune turned away when she said that.

"No I'm not," Everyone went a little tense when he said that, "I'll definitely have my revenge on the White Fang…one day…they'll pay for what they've done, I'll see to it personally if I have to." He looked at the sky wistfully while gripping his right fist tightly, everyone remained silent.

"When I think about it, it never seems quite so long ago…"

* * *

 _ **Two years ago,**_

"Wait up Kitty!" Jaune called out as one of the Arc triplets dashed forward to look at shelf of pastries and cakes lining the window to a bakery.

"C'mon big bro! You're slow!" Princess Catherine of Armorica -better known as Kitty Arc-and the youngest of the Arc triplets stuck her tongue out and wagged it at her elder brother of two years.

"Kitty calm yourself, you're stressing out brother." Princess Elizabeth of Armorica –sometimes known as Lizzie Arc- and the eldest of the Arc triplets scolded her sibling.

"Eh, it's not that bad Lizzie…" Jaune scratched his head as Lizzie folded her arms and maintained a stern expression.

At the same time Princess Victoria of Armorica –or more commonly, 'Vicky Arc'- clung to her elder brother's hand tightly as they walked down the street. Hiding her face shyly and trying her best to look as small and unassuming as she could.

All around them, the people of the royal enclave of Armorica were giving the royalty-in-hiding bemused expressions as the trio of identical triplets tormented and drove their elder brother insane in ways only little siblings could. The hyperactive and ever curious Kitty was constantly on the move, looking for excitement good and bad; shy, timid Vicky always clung to any members of their family while stoic and firm Lizzie was stood at the ready to put them back in line if they ever got out of hand.

Jaune sighed and scratched his head awkwardly as Kitty flitted about like butterfly from one place to another, excitedly

"Slow down Kitty I can't keep up!" Jaune called out and had to jog to keep up with the hyper little princess.

"And I said you're slow!" Kitty put her hands on her waist and pouted; Jaune walked up to her and patted her on the head.

"Yeah I am, but don't go wandering off alone alright? It's dangerous." Jaune explained firmly.

"That's what we always tell her." Lizzie folded her arms and rolled her eyes.

"You're no fun Liz!" Kitty stuck her tongue out again.

"Stop doing that Kitty it's rude!' Jaune scolded.

* * *

"It was…supposed to be a normal day out, just an elder brother taking care of his younger sisters…that was…all it was supposed to be." Jaune seemed to go into a trance as he leaned on a nearby shipping container, not appearing to be talking to anyone in particular.

"My elder sister Marina had assigned a bodyguard detail for us, ten of the Royal Legion's best scouts in plainclothes to watch over us, the area we went to was near the frontline, but there's a whole mile between there and the city, we call it the 'watchful mile', in the event of a breach event it's the distance between the most rearward section of the frontline and the farthest populated area, representing the amount of time to get to designated safe zones in the city." He continued on, the others were all listening intently, Blake and Sun had moved closer so as to not miss out on anything he said.

"I think it was because we'd all gotten complacent…yes that must've been it, we'd never gotten a breach event before…but then again…" Jaune trailed off, "We'd never had to handle an attack from within before, a coordinated, simultaneous attack not just on the family but also on the militia at the frontline _and_ the Royal Legion barracks." Jaune shook his head in dismay.

"It was total chaos and confusion, I…" Jaune stopped when he felt something drip off his cheek; he looked down and held out his hand, just in time for his vision to briefly blur before several more drops fell onto his glove.

Jaune let out a small gasp, he could feel cold tears running down his cheeks, a cold wind bit into his skin as the memories came flooding back. He propped himself up against the container and looked up at the shattered moon that hung in the sky, his eyes went wide as more tears rolled off his cheeks and onto the ground below.

"Jaune." He felt someone's hand tightly grip one of his own; he turned his head and found Ruby staring determinedly into his eyes.

"If it hurts so much, you don't need to tell us." She assured softly.

"No, I think you all deserve to know, at least you should know why I snapped that one time."

* * *

"Uh…brother?" Vicky shook Jaune's hand, Jaune turned to look at her with a smile.

"Yeah Vicky?" He smiled; the shyest of the group was looking nervous and a little fidgety, "Do you want something?" He asked with a smile.

"Uh…well…" She looked at something some distance away, Jaune followed her look and realized what she was staring at.

An ice-cream cart on the opposite side of the road some distance back where they had come from.

"Do you want ice cream?" Jaune asked.

"Uh…yeah…" Jaune could not help but smile, Vicky always had trouble asking for things she wanted.

"Aw, but I want to go to the bakery." Kitty made a sad face.

"Oh…well then I'll be fine." Vicky said a little dejectedly, and then Lizzie chose that moment to step in.

"Nevermind that, I'll take her; ten lien should do it." Lizzie said and held her hand out. Jaune stared at her for a moment.

"Are you sure? I don't want to split us up like that."

"It's just a short distance away," Lizzie replied, "Besides I can take care of myself, and her."

 _That you almost certainly can, sometimes I wonder how old Lizzie actually is._ Jaune thought.

"Alright," Jaune took out his wallet and handed his little sister a ten lien note.

"We'll just be a moment, come on Vicky." Lizzie tugged Vicky away and off to the ice cream vendor.

"C'mon bro! To the bakery!" Vicky pulled on her elder brothers' hand and led him into the nearby bakery where the smell of baking bread and pastries filled the air. Jaune glanced behind them and took note of the two plainclothes guards, one of whom entered the bakery to stay with them while the other kept watch outside.

"So…what do you want?" Jaune asked as Vicky nearly salivated over all the different goods available for sale.

"Ooh this one! No wait how about this one? Uhh…" She looked about here and there, thankfully there were not very many people for her to disturb in the bakery. Jaune chuckled watching his younger sister move about here and there almost as though she were inspecting the shop.

Jaune turned his head to look outside the bakery as a loud screeching of tires against the road sounded, Kitty ignored it but Jaune watched as several masked men jumped out and ran away, one of them seemingly shooting a look at him as he did.

Jaune's eyes widened.

The guard outside realized what was happening, he was just able to shout, "Your highness! Get ba-"

 _Fire_

 _Smoke_

 _Darkness_

* * *

"I don't know how long I was out when the bomb exploded," Jaune shuddered, "But it was enough for the Grimm to make it all the way into the city across the mile once the White Fang had breached the frontline."

Ruby looked like she was on the verge of tears.

Blake was hanging her head in shame.

Sun had his arms folded and was fidgeting nervously.

Penny kept her silence.

"Such an event…a _breach_ in our defenses, it was completely unexpected, absurd even! I guess that it showed how complacent we'd gotten over the years." Jaune suddenly looked up and looked at them.

"Some losses are just inevitable, we'd come to accept that loss we would be a part of our life. And then some losses are just…" Jaune bit back a sob as more tears fell out, " _completely unthinkable_." He managed to hiss out.

* * *

 _Darkness_

 _Can't see_

 _Can't breathe_

 _Pain_

 _Pain_

 _Ithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtspleasemakeitstopmakeitstopthepainmakeitstop_

 _Can't breathe_

 _What is this smell?_

 _Move you idiot!_

 _Move? Move where?_

 _Can't move_

 _What happened?_

 _There was…a fire? And then…loud noises?_

 _Ithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurts_

 _Why is it so noisy?_

 _Can't hear anything_

 _Have to do something_

 _Wake up…must wake up…_

 _Kitty, Lizzie, Vicky, where are they?_

 _Wake up dammit wake up!_

 _Your highness!_

 _Me? Is it me you're asking?_

 _Brother!_

 _That's…Lizzie!_

 _Must wake up! Must wake up!_

 _wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeup_

Jaune forced his eyes opened while hacking and coughing, he felt a heavy weight on his body and realized that he was lying beneath a piece of rubble. Kneeling at his side was one of the guards.

"Hold on your highness! Let me help you!" He said as he began lifting the rubble, as he did so, Jaune felt himself breathe a little easier, he gasped as he tried to sit up, around them terrified civilians were fleeing left and right.

"There! I got it! Now-ugh!" The man was interrupted mid-sentence when a large black spike suddenly appeared right in the middle of his chest.

"Run…your…highness." Jaune's eyes went wide as the man collapsed beside him. Jaune roughly shoved the body aside and looked straight ahead, and then he realized why there was so much screaming.

Right in front of him, advancing menacingly, a large black beast, large black wings, a scorpion's tail, body and mane of a lion and the head of a human. He had heard of the Grimm and their many variations, but had never heard of anything like what he was seeing now, it was like something from the deepest, darkest nightmares given life.

It did not move quickly, instead it moved slowly and steadily, hurling spikes into unlucky civilians and bystanders and in the midst of this all…

"Brother! BROTHER!" He heard a young girl's distressed screaming; he turned his head slightly and saw his younger sister, Elizabeth was looking right and left frantically in a panic was holding her head in her hands.

"Liz!" He shouted back hoarsely.

"Brother!" She began running over to him, at the same time the beast began advancing menacingly, its attention drawn to the terrified young girl running to her elder brother

Jaune eyes widened in terror, as the beast made to flick its tail at Lizzie, he put all his might into his legs, every muscle screamed in protest at his actions but he did not care, every fiber of his being pushed the pain into the back of his mind, raw adrenaline surged through his veins, he was not about to let his family be taken so easily from him.

He jumped and stood in front of his younger sister with his arms outstretched right as the tail flicked forward, Jaune could only close his eyes and prepare himself for the inevitable pain.

To Jaune's complete surprise, it felt more like he was getting punched in the gut than anything else, besides the shock and the force of the impact there did not seem to be much pain.

"Brother!" Lizzie screamed as Jaune slammed into the ground on his back, his vision going hazy. He glanced down to see one of the spikes sticking out of him right through his stomach, Lizzie knelt down beside him and grabbed onto him.

"Run…Lizzie," Jaune mustered all of his effort to stare into her eyes, "Run!" He shouted weakly. Lizzie stood frozen to the spot, desperately holding onto her elder brother bleeding out onto the road, unable to comprehend what was going on. She could only watch in terror as the black shape moved closer and closer to them, knowing that its prey had nowhere to run or hide.

* * *

"I lost my life that day," Jaune said and looked up aimlessly into the sky and closed his eyes for a moment before continuing, "The Manticore rampaged for over an hour before reinforcements finally put it down, in that time the number of dead was…too many..." He paused, "That was just the start of it though…" Jaune turned his attention back to the three, "My aunt, the crown prince's wife, the fox Faunus Princess Kitsune was also attacked, she survived, but the attack made her blind and paralyzed from the waist down from shrapnel, she also miscarried my would-be cousin."

Ruby looked completely horrified, Sun had a grim look on his face but was clearly paying attention; Blake on the other hand was keeping her face down refusing to meet Jaune's eyes, despite that Jaune continued speaking.

"The breach took a whole week of non-stop fighting to seal, in that time we lost dozens-no…we lost _hundreds_ more, we almost closed up the breach with our own dead bodies." Jaune gave a sick, horrid and short laugh at that.

"A…a week…?" Ruby went wide-eyed.

"Wait, wait hang on a minute," Sun scratched the back of his head and looked thoughtful, "how could it have taken a whole damn week to seal the breach? There must have been at least a few hunters in the vicinity-"

" _What_ hunters?" Jaune glared at Sun, "The royal enclaves _don't_ _have_ their own hunters Sun, we are –and always have been- on our own in the royal enclaves," Jaune explained, "we don't have any huntsmen of our own save for any who return home from traveling abroad, oh sure we get a few coming and going on missions, but we've always handled ourselves pretty well."

 _And my father and his team could've been there, but...they...were...away weren't they? Always off chasing something, no time to help out with the bleeding at home..._

"Wha-then how…?"

"Like I just said, we closed it up with our dead bodies," Jaune hissed, "one of which…was Kitty, she was crushed by falling debris when the bomb exploded, the coroner told me that in the very least, it was quick." Jaune stopped before he continuing, "I and Lizzie were saved and brought to safety by another man, but even though she got away when Lizzie hid her when the attack started, she…" Jaune looked away wistfully.

"W-what happened to Vicky?" Ruby asked nervously.

"She broke, mentally, she has never been the same since," Jaune finished, "In the aftermath of the attack, a decision was made by the queen to scatter us to make us less vulnerable to a future attack, at the time two of my eldest sisters were already abroad, my twin sister went to Atlas, and I came here, to Beacon." Jaune continued on without stopping.

"I never wanted to be here." Jaune turned to look specifically at Ruby, who trembled a little under his empty, lifeless gaze, "You all each have your own reasons to be here, you want to be a hero don't you Ruby?" And then he turned to Blake, who still refused to meet his gaze, "Blake," He called out to her, and she finally turned her head to regard him, meeting his eyes bashfully.

"You want to atone for your actions," Jaune nodded,

"And you…" He looked at Sun.

"Sun, Sun Wukong's the name." Sun said.

"You're a hunter because…you want to have fun I guess?" Jaune smirked, Sun resisted flipping him off.

"But I never asked to come to Beacon, they gave me two years of training with the Royal Legion and my uncle –the crown prince- packed me off to Beacon. Ruby, you noticed I didn't come out of the airship the day before initiation right?

"Oh…yeah?

"Well it was through the crown prince's influence that Ozpin granted me early entry to Beacon." Jaune sighed and slid down the back of the container slowly to sit down and hugged his knees to his chest.

"Well shit, so here we are now, anything else you want to know? He asked as he dabbed his eyes lightly, to his surprise he found that at some point in his long tirade, he had stopped crying, only dried tears remained on his cheeks, he sniffed lightly.

"So…" Ruby began as she sat down beside Jaune with her back against the container; Jaune turned his head to regard her, she was still doing her best to digest all of the new information that she had been given, "About what Penny said, you're a prince?" She asked meekly.

"Affirmative!" Penny said for the first time in a long while, "His Royal Highness, Prince Jean of Armorica, fourth child of reigning Duke of Armorica Jacques and tenth in line to the succession of the throne of the House of Vale." Penny rattled off in an instant.

Jaune gave a sigh of resignation and looked away for a moment, there was no hiding it, while he had held out hope, he supposed that through some fortuitous event someone was bound to discover it anyway, and if it were anyone, it may as well be Ruby…and Blake…and Sun the monkey…and whoever 'Penny' was supposed to be, "Yes…what she said, that is indeed my title and…" He trailed off as he looked around them.

"What's wrong?" Ruby asked.

"Can we just tidy up first, I'd feel better knowing that the rest of the White Fang isn't going to just spread the word." Jaune said worriedly.

"Not a problem Jaune!" Penny nodded and zipped away, a couple of bloodcurdling-scream-filled minutes later, and she was right back with them.

"All hostiles are now _100% combat ineffective_." All four gaped at her.

 _I'm curious, but I probably shouldn't ask what that means._ Jaune thought.

"So…" Ruby trailed off and began twiddling her thumbs, "Prince huh?"

"Yes, what-?"

"HOLY COW!" Ruby's eye bugged out and she suddenly squealed, "A REAL PRI-!" Jaune hastily held his hand to her mouth and covered it; Ruby ignored it however and continued excitedly mumbling unintelligibly through the cover while waving her arms.

"Ruby!" Jaune said harshly, Ruby went still and quiet in an instant.

" _No one_ can know Ruby," Jaune hissed and then turned to the other three, "only headmaster Ozpin and Professors Goodwitch, Port and Oobleck know, no one else knows…and _can_ know. So before I remove my hand, I need your assurance that you can keep this secret for me, ok?" Ruby nodded quietly and Jaune slowly withdrew his hand.

When he did this, Ruby immediately pulled her hood on and tugged it down, "Holy moley! A real prince! I'm talking to a real prince! I'm friends with _a real prince_!" Her voice was barely a whisper, Jaune could only muster a small chuckle in response, as much as Ruby tried denying it, she could still be quite childish.

"That goes for the three of you too," Jaune made sure to glare at each of them to emphasize the point, "This secret stays between us, _no one_ else should ever know, and Sun if I ever get so much as a hint that you told anyone else…" Jaune trailed off to make his point known.

"You got it, don't worry your highness." Sun smiled, "Your secret's safe with me."

"Blake? How're you holding up?" Jaune asked, the person in question looked like she had entered some sort of trance, Jaune guessed that she must have been hit quite hard by the revelations from the way she was staring aimlessly at nothing.

 _A prince! In hiding! Here! Right next to me all this while?! Oh…oh this is just like one of my literature novels! Especially the one where…err…ooh…what was the title?! Was it a 'Bloody Rose'? No no that one was the one where it was the assassin that fell in love, definitely not really appropriate here…err…or was it the 'The Dark Shroud'? No that one was the one where it was the sole survivor that turned out to be an exiled prince, also not really appropriate here…err…oh darn what was the title of that novel…arrrggghhh I can't remember I can't remember what do I do what do I do…ok stay calm Blake, you're not responsible for his family's death, oh crap oh crap he going to hate you he's going to hate you oh wait didn't he just say he was ok with me but oh no if Adam finds out he's going to kill all of us but holy shit he's a prince oh real damn prince what do I say what do I say err maybe I should reintroduce myself? No no that would just make you look stupid holy crap I can't believe it but somehow it makes sense right I mean he's like the prince of beacon already isn't he isn't he I mean he's cool and suave and charming and why am I acting like this why am I acting like some high school girl who's about ready to fangirl over some stupid popstar and wait a minute that means he's related to the house of Vale that means that his family was the one who championed equality for the Faunus and that means that we might not have to rely on the white fang anymore to help level the playing field for us holy crap this is so huge I need to get on this somehow maybe I could convince him to get his family to start championing the Faunus cause for us I mean wow that would a game-changer an important family coming out to support us no one has ever done anything like that for my people before how awesome would that be-_

"Blake!" Jaune called out in a slightly worried tone.

"Huh?" Blake snapped out of her long-winded train of thought and looked at Jaune in surprise.

"Are you alright? You didn't look so good for a moment there." Jaune regarded her with an empathic air.

 _That's…that's right, even if they could support the Faunus, why would they when we've hurt their own so badly?_ Blake's expression fell and she looked away.

"It's nothing, I was just thinking about things." She curtly replied.

"Well now that I've revealed a few secrets of my own, perhaps you could sure one of your own." Jaune smirked, Blake turned to look at him with wide eyes.

 _What's he going to ask me? Is he going to pump me for information on the White Fang? But…but its been so long, I don't think I have any useful information to give…_ Blake thought sadly to herself.

"So what're you hiding under your bow?" Jaune asked, Blake gaped at him.

"Oh she's got cat ears on her head!" Penny remarked.

"Will you stop spoiling everything for everyone?" Jaune exasperatedly replied.

Blake sighed and exchanged a glance with Sun who retured it with a reassuring smile. She reached up to the top of her head and slowly pulled her bow away, allowing her twitching cat ears to come free.

Ruby's eyes widened, "Whoa…" She whispered.

Jaune grinned widely on seeing it, "Totally knew it was cat ears!"

* * *

 _ **Sometime later,**_

The whole group sat in silence as they watched several police cars enter the docks…

Followed rapidly by Teams (J)NPR and (R)W(B)Y.

"Remember," Jaune exchanged a look with all of them, "Not a word about your highness, I don't care so much about my past, but my secret stays a secret alright?"

"You got it." Ruby answered.

"No problem." Sun gave a thumbs up.

"Of course." Blake nodded.

"Your secret is safe with me!" Penny smiled.

 _No it's not._ Jaune wanted to protest the last one.

"JAUNE!" Pyrrha shouted and raced over at full speed towards her team leader. At the same time Weiss and Yang went over to Ruby and Blake.

"Pyrrha I'm kinda filthy-" She completely ignored his words and threw herself at him, wrapping both of her arms tightly around his body.

"Are you alright? What happened? Are you hurt?" She whispered softly as she held him close, it was a little awkward for Jaune, he was not generally used to being hugged so tightly by anyone other than his sisters or his parents.

"I'm fine, just fine Pyrrha…" He returned the hug and looked over and exchanged a knowing glance with Blake and Ruby who were getting chewed out by Weiss.

"You have a lot of explaining to do leader!" Nora tapped her foot impatiently, even Ren had a dark look on his face, and then Pyrrha pulled away from the hug and shot him a death glare.

 _I'm so boned._ Jaune gulped.

* * *

 _ **Somewhere else,**_

"GAH!" Roman grunted in pain as he stumbled into a warehouse, his eye now had a bandage over it, although his aura was already beginning to heal the wound away. That kid's sword had hurt like a bitch, thank goodness he had stepped far back enough to avoid losing his whole eye, and it might make for a neat little scar.

"How very disappointing, Roman." A smooth voice like a dagger wrapped in silk sounded out.

 _God help me, I'm in absolutely no mood to deal with this now._ Roman thought angrily.

He ground his teeth and turned to face it, recognizing the tall woman in a crimson dress and her two followers.

"What is it now?" Roman growled out, though he kept his tone measured, knowing that she could be the end of him at any moment, "Sorry I couldn't clean up a little more, I would've if I'd been expecting you." He gestured to the bandage around his eye.

"We were expecting a little more from you, though it seems you got even more careless this time." Cinder narrowed her eyes.

"Hey don't look at me!" Roman protested, "You were the ones who suggested working with those stupid mutts from the White Fang." He mouthed off.

"And you will continue to do so." Cinder smiled and held out one hand, fire erupting and burning bright, "We have big plans for you, Roman. All we ask is... a little cooperation."

"Yeah sure," Roman waved her away, and then he remembered something, "By the way…" He turned back to them as they moved to him, "I overheard something interesting." He said.

"Oh? Do enlighten us." Cinder raised an eyebrow.

"The kid that gave me this," Roman pointed to his bandaged eye, "One of the other ones called him 'your highness'."

Cinder's eyes widened momentarily before settling back down, "Explain." She said sharply, Roman swallowed hard.

"When they started running interference on me, one of them called this blonde kid 'Prince John' or some such thing and addressed him with 'your highness'." Roman explained as quickly as possible, Cinder's eyes widened again in surprise and curiosity, and this time they stayed wide as she looked away and took a few steps away from the group.

None of them could see the malicious smirk that slowly spread across her face as she looked up at the ceiling with a thoughtful expression.

"Hm, I wonder what you are doing _so far_ from your home little prince." Cinder grinned.

* * *

 **Whelp Penny, you really should've watched your tongue there, at least the secret will remain kept at Beacon...hopefully.**

 **I never planned for that thought of Blake being personally involved, to start off with I already established that its been two years since the attack on the royal family, and so:**

 **1\. At the end of "Black and White" Blake states she hasn't been with the White Fang since she was 'younger' implying it's been a few years at least.**

 **2\. Earlier in the same episode, she states that she left, right after she tells Sun about the White Fang's change, suggesting there wasn't a big time difference. Note she also states that the leadership change took place five years ago.**

 **3\. In "the stray", the train robbery is the last thing Weiss mentions, either due it being the least personal thing to happen or that it happened some time ago but not that long ago.**

 **4\. In the Black Trailer, Blake doesn't give any warning to Adam that she's about to leave, Adam questions her thoughts about the crew, she appears a little out of it, and then BAM she goes away, if just not giving a damn about the crew was her limit it seems doubtful she reached her limit a long time _after_ the new leadership took over.**

 **With that in mind, I honestly never had the idea that Blake either knew of or would have been involved something going up to the level of mounting an actual assassination attempt on important figures, especially on a group that doesn't appear to have done anything against the Faunus.**

 **Of course I acknowledge there are counterpoints and inconsistencies to this argument.**

 **In "the stray", Weiss also claims that the SDC has been at war with the WF since she was a child with family members getting executed, making it a little difficult to reconcile Blake's claim that the leadership change took place only five years ago since she states that's when the organized attacks began.**

 **Unless you subscribe to the belief that the personal attacks against Weiss's family were lone wolf attacks that were not actually white fang but were generalized under the "white fang" umbrella.**

 **Or that it was a more violent splinter group that eventually took over the White Fang.**

* * *

 _Jaune stared deeply into Ren's eyes as he caressed his cheeks, Ren's face heated up considerably as his cheeks flushed a deep red and he averted his gaze from Jaune directly looking into his eyes._

 _"Look at me Ren." Jaune dropped the volume and turned the charm up to eleven._

 _Ren's breath caught in his throat, he gulped nervously and was about to speak when Jaune suddenly swept him up bridal style and began carrying him to one of the beds in their dorm, eliciting a loud gasp from the dark-haired boy._

 _"J-Jaune?" Ren stammered out as Jaune dropped him unceremoniously onto the bed with a loud *POMF*, "What're we doing on the bed?"_

 _"Well Ren..." Jaune trailed off as he hovered over the person in question with a dangerous look in his eyes, "You just lie there comfortably, and I'll show you the way..."_

 _And then he ******* and ******** and then Ren ******** and the both of them ********** and after that they********** and Jaune *********** and Ren *********** and then once they were done with that the two of them **************************while Jaune was*******and then Ren did********* and then both*******at the same time Jaune **********while Ren was********_

 _..._

Blake snatched a cloth beside her notepad and quickly swiped off the blood that was dripping down from her nose before tossing it aside and returning to writing.

* * *

 **Blake writes slashfics and you will not convince me otherwise.**

 **With this, I close "V1", I appreciate all your reviews, faves and follows.**


	14. Fallout

**MINOR UPDATE: Redid the author notes at the bottom, I realized they weren't complete.**

 **I present to you Volume 1.5...**

 **And the single longest chapter I have written for this very fanfic, personally am rather proud of this chapter even if it has its failings.**

 **Do enjoy**

* * *

Ozpin clicked his tongue irritably as he regarded the two huntresses-in-training plus one prince-not-so-much-in-hiding standing nervously before him. He had had enough of a headache to deal with when he found out one of his students had gone missing when her secret had gotten out, at the time he had feared as to the prince's likely reaction if the word had gotten out. Sadly, his fears had proven correct, and through some strange series of convoluted events, now the prince's secret was out. Thankfully he had seen fit to contain it to the two standing before him.

Plus one monkey Faunus from Haven.

Named Sun Wukong.

…

He would have to ring up Haven's headmaster about that one.

And maybe various assorted criminals who would no doubt be gunning for the –undoubtedly- steep price on the prince's head once the word spread –and it would spread like a wildfire- from the mouth of Vale's most infamous career criminal. The fact that the prince had probably insulted said career criminal to the face was, in all likelihood, not going to help out at all.

Nope, not at all.

…

He was going to need a whole lot more coffee for this shit.

At the moment, they were all in his office at the top of the tower, along with them Professors Goodwitch, Oobleck and Port, all of whom were regarding the two plus one teenagers in front of them with mixed feelings. In the meantime, all three teens were fidgeting nervously and doing their best not to look right into the eyes of the professors in front of them.

"Well now, how should we get through this dilemma?" Ozpin sipped from his cup of coffee.

"It's not any of our faults that 'Penny' –whoever she is- went off and blurted out my name like that." Jaune tried pointing out.

"No…But it _is_ your fault for getting involved in such a dangerous incident, Roman Torchwick may be a _burglar lowlife_ , but he still a highly experienced and capable individual, he is not a person to be underestimated." Professor Goodwitch directed a withering glare at all three of them that visibly made them shrink.

"And it was _very_ rash of you to charge into the fray like that without calling for help first," Oobleck adjusted his glasses and looked at the prince, "I really would've thought you would be a better person than that your highness." He chided.

Jaune hung his head shamefully, but responded nonetheless, "There was no time to call for assistance, I saw the fire and went to help as fast as I could, when I saw Blake in trouble I couldn't help myself, so I just…" He scratched his head, "I just jumped in I guess?"

"Well I think that it was a decisive decision that you made there." Port boomed, his voice full of pride, "You got right in there without a doubt and showed those men what a _real hunter_ is!" He cheered, earning a sharp glare from Glynda.

"Not. The. Time." She growled out, causing Port to fall silent.

Ruby and Blake remained silent throughout the entirety of the exchange, their eyes frequently going this way and that, not at all focusing on the conversation and preferring to let Jaune lead since it was apparent that he was more familiar with the staff than they were.

"Regardless of all that, we need to decide what to do now and where to go from here, his highness's safety has been irretrievably compromised by this leak, and we need to take extra precautions to make sure that he is properly guarded at all times now." Ozpin noted.

 _I am safeguarding Beacon's financial future, no matter what it takes._ He said internally to himself.

"Perhaps we should confine him permanently to Beacon for the remainder of his stay here; it would stop him from committing anymore reckless actions such as these." Glynda folded her arms, Jaune squeaked a little at that thought.

"Put him under my guard!" Port grinned widely and pounded his chest, "No one is getting past me!"

 _I'd rather die before I go with you._ Jaune tried –and failed- to hide his disgusted expression, the thought of listening to Port drone on about more of his glory days was excruciating in the extreme.

"Excuse me? A situation like this requires a delicate touch; your tomfoolery is only going to invite attention!" Oobleck protested.

"Err…can I make a suggestion?" Jaune raised his hand.

"No." All the professors simultaneously said, Jaune shrank under their gaze and put his hand down.

"Ms. Belladonna, I hope you do realize that Mr. Arc here is well within his rights to request your removal from the Beacon premises as a result of your…past adventures." Ozpin stated flatly, all three hunters-in-training's eyes widened on hearing that, Blake snatched a glance at Jaune, a small part of her wondering if her would in fact take up that offer, but then Jaune turned to look at her and smirked at her.

And she knew that she was safe.

"Its fine," Jaune turned back and nodded, "We've…sorted that out."

"Do explain your highness," Ozpin lifted both his eyebrows.

"Explain? Uh…" Jaune tried to think of a suitable answer, "she, Ruby and Sun can be my unofficial bodyguards for the time that I will spend here, this way you can tell my uncle that you've already taken immediate steps to ensure my continued safety here at Beacon, and also…" Jaune trailed off to let the point sink in.

"Even if Blake wasn't ah… _with_ us, isn't this the best way that we can keep an eye on her? To make sure she doesn't stray away from her chosen path, we'll keep her close to us."

This caused everyone to raise eyebrows at the prince –and incidentally, Blake to lightly tinge her cheeks pink-, who quickly caught on and said, "that wasn't what I meant! I just want to say that if she gets out of hand, we can quickly um…I guess 'control' isn't the best word for it but…you get what I mean right?" He gave a sheepish smile.

"We…do." Glynda gave a sigh of resignation and rubbed her forehead.

"And what about Mr. Wukong?" Ozpin asked.

"He's agreed to keep it a secret, since he's only here for the Vytal Festival and will be staying over he'll also provide bodyguard duty during summer break." Jaune explained.

"You're not going back for summer?" Oobleck asked.

"No, Marina and uncle both have enough to deal with at home, besides with everyone out what would I do while I was there?" Jaune shrugged.

"Hm, so to sum up, Ruby, Blake and Sun will now be providing themselves as bodyguards for you for the remainder of your time here, is that right?"

"Yes."

"And this is alright with you your highness?" Ozpin quirked an eyebrow.

"It's the best we can do for now." Jaune shrugged.

"Very well then," Ozpin sighed and rubbed his forehead, "off you go now." Ozpin dismissed them, the three quickly made their way out of his room and down the elevator.

"Was that wise? I still think we should have an adult keeping watch." Port said as he folded his arms.

"No, bringing in anyone else will only invite more attention to him, the best we can do now is watch from afar and only interfere when it starts to get out of hand, other than that we'll just have to trust the prince's judgement…and his new bodyguards." Ozpin noted.

"And what will we do about Roman Torchwick?" Glynda asked.

Ozpin gave a great sigh and took another sip from his coffee cup, only to find that it was empty.

 _Well that's not good._ He thought.

* * *

Meanwhile, Jaune, Blake and Ruby were at that moment, in the elevator going down to the bottom to meet up with their teams and Sun who had been left out of the proceedings of the meeting, something to do with him not being "one of us" according to Ozpin, who apparently preferred to keep this whole royalty thing as an internal matter.

"So…what're we going to do when we get down?" Ruby asked.

"We tell them we got a scolding by all the professors and that we're barred from traveling to Vale for the next few weeks as punishment."

"We weren't." Blake pointed out.

"No, but we can't say they just let us go so easily because of your heiney," Jaune remarked, "so I'm volunteering this punishment unless you want a certain something that starts with 'detention' and ends with 'goodwitch'." Jaune deadpanned, both Ruby and Blake flinched when he said that, neither really wanted to have to make _that_ up for an excuse.

Before long, the elevator had reached the ground floor and opened up…to reveal a rather tense situation.

Sun stood at one side uncomfortably, he was stealing small glances every now and then to the other side of the hallway, where the rest of Team (R)W(B)Y and Team (J)NPR were watching him _very_ intently, Weiss in particular had a dark scowl on her face, even Pyrrha seemed to be look rather irritated.

"So…I take it you all took the time to get to know Sun?" Jaune said as he walked up to them.

Pyrrha's head immediately flicked towards him and she ran up, "Jaune! How'd it go? What'd the headmaster say?" She asked.

"Well we're suspended and barred from exiting Beacon for the next two weeks as punishment," Jaune shrugged.

"Ouch." Yang called out.

"Well it could be worse; at least it's not detention with Professor Goodwitch." Jaune sighed as the others contemplated this thought.

"But enough about that, I assume you're all getting along with Sun?" Jaune looked between Sun and the rest of them.

"Of course we are." Pyrrha stole a glance at Sun and then looked back at Jaune with the most fake smile anyone had ever seen.

"Pyrrha, that _wasn't_ very convincing." Jaune lifted an eyebrow.

"Well, it's just that…" Pyrrha trailed off and wrung her hands together somewhat bashfully.

Weiss cleared her throat to get everyone's attention, "What Pyrrha is trying to say is…" She took a deep breath, "While Sun is a nice person and all, we still would have preferred if you'd come to us first." She explained flatly.

"Sun _is_ a nice person, and that's why you went to him isn't that right Blake?" Jaune turned to look at Blake, who exchanged a short glance and a shrug with Sun.

"He a bit of a monkey alright," Blake snorted at her own pun, Yang grinned at that, "But Jaune's right, he's a nice guy and he helped me through my problems, I'd trust him with my life, and you can to."

 _Leaving out the part where I need to trust him with my life from now on._ Jaune thought, the others looked somewhat skeptical, but seemed to at least be accepting of the idea.

"And as for you," now Weiss turned to Jaune and frowned deeply, "I'm sorry for your loss, I really am," Jaune lifted a questioning eyebrow, "I know what it feels like to have lost family alright? I lost a lot of friends and I had a hard time growing up…" Weiss trailed off for a moment before continuing, "But that's no excuse for you to go play vigilante!" She suddenly raised her voice, "We're supposed to be working together as a team-"

"I'm not on your team." Jaune corrected.

"Doesn't matter!" Weiss waved the remark away, "You abandoned your team and struck out on your own, and that's not what a team is, you're supposed to work together and support each other, not run off on your own all willy nilly trying to solve problems. We're in teams for a _reason_ you dunce." Weiss finished, Jaune gaped at her.

"Whoa, where is all this coming from…?" Jaune asked.

"From me of course, as a Schnee it's my duty to educate those of lesser disposition." Weiss held up a finger.

"Really," Jaune rolled his eyes, "Try losing one of your actual family members and then come back to me."

"Excuse me? I've already attended enough funerals for my friends to know what pain is."

"But you weren't involved in an actual attack; you didn't see them die before your very eyes."

"At least you didn't have to watch everyone slowly disappear over the years!"

"At least you didn't have to watch as hundreds died just because some terrorists didn't like you very much!"

"What did you say?! I saw my uncle get carried away in a black body bag after a meeting!" Weiss's eye twitched, "Shot through the head by a sniper."

"My aunt was permanently disabled _and_ miscarried my cousin."

"Dozens of innocent workers dead after sabotage blew up one of our refineries!"

" _Hundreds_ of casualties, innocent men, women, and children when our lines were breached."

"A train full of dust stolen!"

"…That's not worse."

"Yes it is, the SDC lost a massive investment in that."

"…Really Weiss?"

"Yes, _really_." Weiss folded her arms and adopted her high and haughty persona; she even attempted to turn her nose up at Jaune.

It did not really work considering Jaune's height compared to Weiss.

Meanwhile the rest of Team R(W)BY and (J)NPR –and Sun- watched the two go at it with their jaws agape, their heads flicking back and forth as the heiress and the prince-in-hiding went at it like two little children trying to one up each other, the most grim part being that they were trying to one up each other in terms of how much they had suffered compared to the other. Finally though, both Jaune and Weiss fell silent, both of their eyes were clearly watery from all the memories they had both drudged up in their little argument, and then something strange happened.

Both simultaneously cocked wry smiles.

"I guess we've both lost a lot huh?" Jaune said first and hung his head

"Yes…yes we did." Weiss sighed sadly and looked away, "too much." She swallowed.

"I… _we'll_ make them pay for it, for everything they've done to us." Jaune looked up and Weiss looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

"Yeah, we _definitely_ will." She turned and smirked.

For reasons even he was unsure of, Jaune suddenly felt the need to reach his hand out as if offering a handshake.

"They won't take anything else…from us."

"No, they won't." Weiss surprisingly took his hand and grasped it firmly, staring into each other's eyes with conviction.

"…So…are you two saying goodbye or something?" Yang suddenly spoke up, and both Jaune and Weiss were suddenly aware that they both looked rather silly standing there holding hands in front of their teams, both immediately broke apart.

"N-no, we were just coming to an agreement, right Weiss?" Jaune tried his best to sound

"Sure…yeah…let's go with that." Weiss nodded.

As the teams walked back to their dorms, Sun fell in step right behind Blake since Pyrrha was staying right next to Jaune.

"You know I don't think they like me very much." He whispered as quietly as he could.

"That's just because you're an outsider to this little group, give them some time they'll warm up to you eventually." Blake noted with a smile.

"At least I don't have to start from scratch, I've got you." He grinned and attempted to put his arm around Blake's shoulder, Blake lightly pushed it away in response; Sun seemed a little surprised by this but nevertheless backed down.

"Me…plus the two of them." Blake nodded at Jaune and Ruby.

* * *

In the days and weeks that followed the docks incident, everyone noticed a change that seemed to come over the leader of Team JNPR. Gone was the ever cheerful, ever smiling blonde knight with an innumerable number of sarcastic and witty jokes to poke and prod people with, he did seem to hang out a lot more with Ruby and Blake and that other student from Haven, and nowhere was this more apparent than with the few other people in Beacon who he interacted with on a more regular basis besides his team.

Namely, the workers at the Beacon Forge/Armory.

Vulcan's eye twitched rather badly as she saw Jaune walk in with two of the Forge's most hated huntresses-in-training following right behind him, she ground her teeth to pieces as she imagined what it would like to heat either that ridiculous rifle-scythe thing or that stupid variable-ballistic-sword-gun whatever it was that the dark-haired girl carried with her and smash them to pieces with her hammer.

 _Why oh why does he insist on associating himself with all these people with their overcomplicated pieces of malfunction fucking bullshit fucking idiotic weapons?_ She thought to herself.

 _Maybe I should consider letting him get to know with similarly like-minded people, like that second-year with that giant-ass sword that only he can use, now that I think about it, doesn't Yatsuhashi's team consist of equally ridiculous weapon users?_ Vulcan rolled her eyes as she watched Jaune approach.

"Hey Ms. Vulcan, how're you doing?" Jaune greeted as he approached.

"Just fine Jaune-y, what's up?" She focused all of her attention onto him and did her best to ignore the other two.

"I wanted to show you something," Jaune snapped his shield open and unsheathed the sword of Crocea Mors, the long gleaming blade stood in stark contrast to the much shorter sword that Vulcan was used to seeing, her eyes widened in surprise and she looked directly at Jaune with a smirk on her face.

"I didn't know you got an upgrade, where'd you get that from?" She asked.

"After a little altercation with a certain criminal, you may have heard of it," Jaune said as he twirled he sword, "It also shattered the blade sheathe."

"Well from the looks of it, it seems like you won't be needing the sheathe anymore." Vulcan chuckled, "So you come here to tell me about how your _sword_ got longer from beating on some two-bit criminal?"

"I was hoping you'd be able to answer that actually," Jaune replied as he handed the sword to Vulcan to examine, "I don't know what happened, one moment I was in pain and the next, I was holding a completely different blade, I…I remember thinking that the weapon I was using wasn't enough, that I needed something better, with greater reach and with a sturdier shield, and then there was the weapon I needed." Jaune explained as best as he could.

"A weapon that can change forms with a thought? That's some real funky shit you're thinking right there Jaune-y." Vulcan said as she scratched her head, "Frankly I've never heard of it, weapons with mechanisms to shift forms at the press of a button or the twist of a lever yes," As she said that she spared a passing glare at both Ruby and Blake, who had remained silent and were clearly doing their best to not look at the smith, "But a weapon that can change forms with a thought? That's…that's…I don't even know what to think about it, _obviously_ it would be the dream weapon of every hunter ever, a weapon that can change to suit the situation, the best advice I can give you is go talk to whoever gave you the weapon in the first place."

 _Which would probably be the crown prince, or maybe the duke even though no one has seen him or the duchess in years._ She thought to herself.

"I was thinking maybe you could try taking a sample again, just to try." Jaune shrugged.

"Ok, I'll _try_ ," Vulcan took the sword and placed it on her anvil, "But you're paying for anymore equipment damages," She smiled and took up a scraper.

"What's she doing?" Ruby asked Jaune.

"She's going to try to scrape a few slivers of the material that Crocea Mors is made off; last time she did that she completely blunted her scraper." Jaune explained. All three watched intently as Vulcan tried to scrape her tool along the blade of Crocea Mors, but the only sparks that came off were the sparks from the scraper itself. After a few minutes, Vulcan looked at the scraper.

The edge had been worn almost flat.

"Whelp, I'm putting that on your tab." She tossed it to the side and then took up a hammer, she looked at Jaune to ensure she had confirmation to do what she was about to do.

Jaune nodded.

And so she placed the hammer flat against the blade, preparing to make the hardest swing she could.

"What is she-?" Ruby was about to ask when Vulcan suddenly raised her arm and brought the hammer down, the result was rather unexpected.

Instead of a loud metallic banging noise, there the sound of a mini-explosion, the hammer's head shattered and Vulcan fell to the ground with a loud cry cursing and swearing, Jaune quickly rushed over to help her.

"Ms. Vulcan!" He said as he pulled her to a sitting position.

"I'm fine I'm fine." She waved him off as Emil came running up.

"What the hell happened?" He demanded.

"My hammer exploded on Jaune's sword," Vulcan deadpanned as she struggled to get up and dusted herself off, "At least we know your sword is still as fucking indestructible as ever." She shrugged.

"Well then remind me to pay you back for the hammer and scraper." Jaune gave a weak smile as he sheathed the sword and collapsed the shield.

"Yeah, will do. So is there anything else I can help you with? That doesn't involve destroying anymore of my tools?" She smirked.

Ruby perked up, "Y'know I was-"

"No." Vulcan answered flatly.

"But I haven't-"

"No."

"I-"

"No."

"Why won't you just listen to me for once?" Ruby stomped her foot and pouted.

"I am listening, and rule number one of the Forge is that any request made by Ruby Rose is to be immediately ignored _or_ put at the bottom of the priority list." Vucan folded her arms and stated firmly.

Blake did her best to stifle and suppress a snicker while Ruby looked crestfallen.

"But…but…" She pouted and gave her best puppy dog face, but Vulcan was not in the least moved.

"What'd she do to earn that?" Jaune asked with a raised eyebrow.

"We don't speak of it." Emil explained.

"Why not?"

"Why should we?" Vulcan interjected.

"Well I'd really like to know."

"But we'd really rather you didn't."

"So why not?"

"Because _reasons_." Vulcan rolled her eyes, "That's why."

"But I really-"

"Don't want to know, and no longer _wish_ to." Vulcan completed his answer for him.

Realising that there was nothing else left for them to do, the trio took their leave from the Beacon Forge.

"Jaune didn't look at all that good did he?" Emil noted as Vulcan propped up her leg and massaged her old wound.

"A little more curt, a lot less smiling, yeah he was a little different alright, still at least he was polite about it," Vulcan agreed, "Maybe he woke up on the wrong side of the bed today? Who knows? Kid's got issues."

 _Can't imagine what being the prince must be like._ Vulcan wondered about her old homeland.

"Like serious issues or just issues in general?"

"How the hell should I know? You wanna go ask him yourself?" Vulcan scoffed, both fell silent at that.

After a moment of silence, Vulcan began speaking again, "When I hit the hammer, in that moment, I felt something strange…" She rubbed her forehead and grimaced.

"What was it?"

"It was as though something lashed back out at me, like something was angry at me for attempting to harm it," Vulcan sighed and sat down gently, "I felt it clawing at my mind, but it was just a moment, so weird…it was as though the weapon was alive or something."

"Living weapons? Those things are just a myth Vulcan." Emil narrowed his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah I know, still one can't help but wonder…"

* * *

"I'm surprised you let her take a hammer to your sword like that, pretty big risk to take even if your sword is indestructible." Blake noted.

"It is indestructible, that's why I let her take that risk." Jaune patted Crocea Mors while Blake rolled her eyes.

"So what was all that about Ruby?" Jaune asked with a frown, Ruby immediately went tense.

 _Nonononono he doesn't need to know about 'that'! He's a prince right? Gotta make a good impression, he doesn't need to know your bad points; he just needs to know your good points._ Ruby thought quickly.

"Ruby?"

 _Quickly! I need to deflect attention from this somehow! Think Ruby think! There's gotta be something I can do to-AHA!_ Ruby suddenly had a triumphant grin on her face.

"Ruby? What-"

"TEAM BONDING SESSION!" Ruby suddenly shouted in Jaune's face, even Blake was blown away by the sudden increase in volume.

"Wha-? Ruby what're you-?" Jaune tried to interrupt but Ruby was talking again.

"A team bonding session, let's all have a movie night tonight at our dorm!" Ruby said excitedly.

"…ok…" Jaune tilted his head quizzically to the side, "Where is this coming from?"

"Doesn't matter! Since we're all together again we should all get together and do something fun together! I'll grab the snacks, Yang can pick out a movie, and we can all crash for the night in my dorm!"

Jaune exchanged a look with Blake, who merely shrugged in response.

As the day drew to a close, the two teams began making their preparations for their movie night, Yang was insistent on picking out an action/thriller/comedy while Weiss was trying to get everyone to agree to watch a political drama of some sort. In the end Yang won out of course, no one really felt like watching a drama after the drama of the last few days, and as everyone was getting ready to settle down with armloads of drinks, popcorn and snacks they all noticed something missing.

Their knight was not around at the appointed time for meeting.

And so did a scramble ensue to find him. Pyrrha went to the rooftop where they had spent time together before, expecting to find him gazing out aimlessly again, she found nothing.

Ren and Nora checked their stall, still nothing.

Ruby –as much as she did not want to- headed down to the armory, and was promptly chased out by Vulcan empty-handed.

Blake checked the library, however the librarian on duty simply shrugged.

Yang went to the training room, nope nothing.

Too everyone's great surprise, as they milled around somewhat aimlessly trying to find their knight, all simultaneously got a message from the resident heiress.

 _Found him, will be back soon._

Jaune watched the sun as it slowly set over the hills and mountains, he was leaning on a railing on the upper floors of the academy with his chin resting on his hands.

He still remembered the ride back in the bullhead; he was in absolutely no mood to relive all of his memories –and the corresponding emotions- all over again so he left it to Ruby and Blake to sort it out with the others. As they retold his story as best as they could –remembering of course, to leave out all the parts where he was a prince-, he leaned back on the hull and tried to tune it out, tune out the words and the thoughts that they brought to him. Still it was not as though he could completely ignore everything though, every now and then one of the others would give him a horrified look like Ruby had given him, Pyrrha gasped and looked like she was on the verge of tears when Ruby had gotten to part where Jaune had been impaled on one of the Manticore's spikes.

It was even harder when after a short lecture from Glynda and some words from Ozpin to meet him the next morning, they had all been dismissed back to their dorms, and thankfully his team was nice enough to wait until they were inside the dorm itself before trying to prod him for anything.

* * *

 _ **Last night,**_

"Jaune I…I know it must be painful for you-" Pyrrha tried to speak but was swiftly interrupted.

"If you know, why do you insist?" Jaune exclaimed bitterly, and then silently cursed himself for taking his anger out on his partner, "Look Pyrrha," He put his face in his hands and took a deep breath to calm himself down, "I'm exhausted, I just fought a criminal with a rocket launcher for a weapon, I really just want to bathe and go to sleep alright? Can we just…" Jaune finally looked at Pyrrha, who had a pained expression in her eyes, Jaune grit his teeth, "Can we do this tomorrow?" He finally sighed.

"I don't want to hear it from some third party," Pyrrha replied, clearly hurt, "I want to know it from you Jaune," Pyrrha reached out to take his hand and squeezed it firmly, it was a warm, comforting, almost familial touch, when Jaune looked at her, she looked quite determined.

"Why not? You don't trust Ruby or Blake?" Jaune lifted an eyebrow, Pyrrha shook her head slowly.

"It's not that, it's just…" Pyrrha looked away this time.

"If it was just Ruby or Blake telling us, it wouldn't really be _you_ opening up to us would it Jaune?" Ren piped up, "Ruby and Blake are all our friends in our circle, but it's not _you_ telling us is it?"

"Yeah leader! We don't need messengers to tell us what happened, we need you to tell it to us!" Nora grinned brightly.

Jaune forced himself to hold back another snappy remark and almost bit his tongue in the process, he grabbed and pushed the worst of his comebacks down and slowly sat down on the edge of his bed.

"There isn't anything I could tell you that Ruby or Blake hasn't." He spoke tersely, "The White Fang attacked us, my sister died, I was nearly killed myself, there was a breach and…even more died, there are you happy now?" Jaune growled out but kept his volume down.

"Where did you get hit?" Nora asked out of the blue.

Jaune sighed, it was pointless getting angry at Nora of all people, and so he rolled up his hoodie and undershirt, exposing a jagged white pale patch on his abdomen with a matching patch on his back.

"It went all the way through; I only survived because I got my aura unlocked and it saved me," Jaune explained before he pulled his shirt back down.

It was sort of back and forth for the rest of the night, Jaune giving curt, short answers to the other three until everyone got tired and turned in for the night.

* * *

 _Ah shit, I could've been a bit nicer about it at least, no reason to take my anger out on my own team like that._ He thought to himself as a voice broke him out of his thoughts.

"What are you doing here you dunce? Movie night is about to begin." A sharp voice rang out; Jaune turned his head and found himself looking at the resident heiress whose arms were folded and with an irritated expression on her face, "You'd better have a good reason for keeping all of us waiting like that."

"Well I was just…thinking." Jaune answered.

"I never took you for the brooding, sulking sort." Weiss rolled her eyes, "Anyway come on, everyone is getting worried for you." Weiss turned to walk away

"Hey Weiss…can I ask you something?" Jaune's question stopped her in her tracks and she turned to give him a quizzical look, "Please?" Jaune said meekly.

She walked up to the railing and placed her own hands on it, looking out into the distance and leaning on the railing as the sun set over the horizon, "That depends on what you want to ask." She answered.

"You know Weiss…" Jaune trailed off, "I know we've had our differences and we've had our arguments, but I like to think that you and I have been able to establish some kind of commonality based on mutual respect-"

"If you don't stop rambling now we might lose whatever commonality we _had_."

"Right ok just let me finish alright? I'm just trying to have a friendly chat here Weiss no need to get worked up."

"Well hurry up and spit it out you dunce, I don't have all day."

"You see? There you go again with the snippy remarks-"

"If you're really just going to keep this up I'm going." Weiss stated and was about to walk away when Jaune suddenly grabbed her shoulder.

"Alright alright simmer down will you?" He gave a small smile; Weiss rolled her eyes and turned back to him. Both returned to their positions at the railing.

"So what did you want to ask about again?" She asked with a slight tone of irritation in her voice.

"Do you think…" Jaune began slowly and paused to find the right words to convey his thoughts, "do you think everyone is disappointed?" He looked at her directly, and she turned her head to face him as well.

"Disappointed in what? That you acted out of turn and on your own with complete disregard for others?" Weiss scoffed, "Then yes I would say that everyone is rather disappointed in you, although not just you, Ruby and Blake have their own actions to answer for." She stated firmly.

"Not quite what I meant…" Jaune scratched his head while Weiss folded her arms and lifted a questioning eyebrow, "What I meant was, do you think everyone is disappointed that I'm not the sparkly knight-in-shining armor that people thought I was? That it was mostly just a façade?"

"Well I can't speak for the others but…" Weiss started and trailed off for a moment, this was a surprising moment for her, of all the people Jaune could have talked to about this problem, flirty Yang, sweet Ruby, aloof Blake, his partner Pyrrha…

Of all the people he could have gone to he chose to come to her instead? This was quite the shocker for her, after all most of their interactions up until that point ever since their little argument on initiation day had been the endless trading of barbed remarks and inciting words, it had been a strange dalliance played out where she would say something and he would respond with some kind of sarcastic remark, followed up by her making the realization of her slip and angrily cussing him out.

What strange games they played.

Despite this, she did to some odd extent enjoy their back-and-forth bantering, in the past months she had learned some form of self-control, he made sure that for every angry word she had, he had some kind of comeback for it for which she often had no answer. It was insulting in the very least, Schnees did not take such insults lightly or for granted, then again she was not in Atlas, was not in her comfort zone of obedient servants and sycophantic businessmen.

Whatever it was, Jaune did remind her of that important fact. Plus, they had sort of bonded over the White Fang having ruined both of their lives, so there was that. And now here he was, in a vulnerable moment himself, and she standing at the side, wondering what she could say to make him feel better.

"I…I think its fine." She said, Jaune looked quite surprised when she said that.

"You're fine with it?"

"Yes, perhaps you're not the knight-in-shining armor that everyone wants, but at the same time I think you're being more honest with yourself and with others now. Well don't take this the wrong way, but…" Weiss pursed her lips before continuing, "I always thought you were kind of a fake."

Now Jaune was stunned, _but it you think about it, really not all that surprising,_ He thought to himself.

 _She is after all, the heiress to a multi-billion dollar company with a massive stake in world politics, it would be weird if she weren't capable of sniffing out a fake from the instant she had set eyes on it._ He nodded to himself.

"A fake huh? I guess no one can hide for that long without someone noticing." Jaune gave a sheepish smile.

Weiss scoffed, "I don't think anyone can hide themselves forever, there are always cracks where the truth can come to light," She glanced briefly out into the distance again, the sun's last rays were disappearing over the horizon, nighttime would be upon them soon enough, "For what it's worth," She continued speaking, "even if you're not the knight-in-shining armor come to save the world, even if you're not the perfect hero that everyone wishes you were, I personally think you're being a lot more sincere with us now…and I think that that's for the better, there's no need to wear a mask here, we all want the same thing right?" Weiss gave an awkward smile.

"We do?" Jaune asked.

"Oh you dunce…" Weiss sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose while shaking her head, "Are you seriously going to tell me you're not here to help humanity out? Be a hunter? Fight the good fight? Defend the innocent? That sort of thing?" She put her arms on her waist and directed an inquisitive gaze at Jaune.

Jaune laughed on seeing that, "Yeah, I guess so," He looked out into the distance and leaned over the railing to glance downwards, "Thanks for the talk Weiss, you know you're really not as the ice queen as you seem to be," He chuckled.

"Hmph, I wouldn't push your luck Jaune if I were you Jaune, there's no way I'm letting you make silly passes at me just because we've had our little…talk here." Weiss turned around, "We should get going, we're already held movie night up by a fair amount of time, so stop sulking and let's get going already."

"Of course, would you like an escort Ms. Schnee?" Jaune held out his arm, Weiss rolled her eyes.

"In your dreams Mr. Arc," Although she said that with a smirk on her face.

 _Well as it turns out Ms. Schnee,_ Jaune smirked, _there really_ are _some masks that even_ you _can't see past._ He thought as he followed the heiress back to Team RWBY's dorm.

* * *

The days seemed to pass quickly after that, and before any of them knew it, summer break was upon them and everyone was packing up and getting ready to head home for the holidays, not everyone was going home though, a select few were remaining behind for various reasons.

Blake because she had nowhere else to go.

Ren and Nora because _they_ had nowhere else to really be.

Sun since he was technically a student from Haven.

And…Jaune?

"Well like I said, my parents won't be back that soon, so I'll be leaving tomorrow rather than today." Jaune smiled at his partner, who was looking rather downcast as she gripped her briefcase tightly.

"I…of course Jaune."

"You alright Pyrrha?" Jaune leaned forward to level his face with Pyrrha, the girl looked away for a moment and pursed her lips.

"Well…its just…Jaune I'm…" Pyrrha tried to say but Jaune waved her thought away.

"If you're talking about that night, it's alright, I didn't mean to snap at you either," Jaune nodded.

"I…thank you Jaune." Pyrrha finally returned the smile, she stepped forward a little hesitatingly, her arms opened a little. Jaune smirked when he saw what was happening and stepped forward to pull her into a tight hug; she gave a little squeak of surprise but reciprocated with her face buried into his shoulder.

"I'll see around Pyrrha." Jaune smiled.

"I'll see you too Jaune." She pulled away, her face flushing brightly, she walked backwards still facing him and gave a little wave just before she turned away and finally stepped onto the bullhead.

"So…Jaune?" Ren said as the bullhead pulled out of the landing pad.

"Yeah Ren?"

"Why'd you lie to Pyrrha?" Ren turned to give Jaune a rather dark look.

* * *

 **That's not gonna bite Jaune in the ass someday, no sirree I have no idea what you're talking about.**

 **I'll be honest, although I like to think I did Jaune and Weiss's little pissing contest and their subsequent interaction fine, I could probably have done Jaune's aftermath talk with his team a little better, I 'll definitely try to fill in that gap in the next chapter.**

 **Sun could probably have been given a bit more time and lines, that's also something I'll be trying to put in next chapter.**

* * *

 **Virgin Prince**

Teams RWBY and JNPR were in JNPR's dorm room, playing truth or dare with each other after classes to try and get to really know each other better, at the moment everyone was cowering in fear.

It was Nora's turn.

She gleefully spun the bottle they were seated around, it spun...and spun...and spun...and spun some more...and then it slowed down...

And it landed on Jaune.

Jaune gulped as a wicked gleam appeared in Nora's eye.

"Truth or dare leader!" She grinned a little widely for anyone's liking.

"Er..." Jaune weighed his options as he felt a trickle of sweat run down his brow, all eyes were upon him, waiting for the prince-in-hiding to make his decision.

 _She might try to ask me about being a prince, but I could lie couldn't I? I'm definitely not going for dare, I don't want to know what she has in mind for a dare._ He thought nervously.

"T-truth." He finally said, and then the gleam seemed to get bigger.

"Hohoho!" Nora laughed evilly, "Then answer me truthfully Jaune!" She took a deep breath.

"Are you a virgin?!" She practically shouted.

Nearly everyone's faces went red.

"H-How dare you!" Weiss screeched and stuttered, "That's _completely_ inappropriate!"

"Nora that _is_ a rather inappropriate question." Ren agreed.

"EH?! REALLY?!" She said with wide eyes.

"Yes."

"But then there'd be no point to truth or dare!" Nora argued.

"B-besides Nora," Pyrrha tried, "I err...I don't think Jaune has ever...done 'that' before."

"Yeah what P-money said, I'm pretty sure Jaune is still a virgin." Yang nodded along with Pyrrha, Pyrrha knew she was safe in her assumption, there was positively no way that Jaune could have-

"Actually no I'm not." Jaune suddenly spoke up.

"WHAT?!" Everyone simultaneously turned to face him.

"When?!" Weiss looked shocked to her core

"Where?!"Yang's eyes lit up

"How...?" Ruby looked confused more than anything else

" _ **WHO?!**_ " Pyrrha looked really angry for some reason.

 _So I can kill her later of course._ She thought

"It just was a one night stand two years ago," Jaune twiddled his thumbs under the withering looks.

"Woo boy, who knew ladykiller really _could_ kill the ladies!" Yang reached over and dragged Jaune down with an arm around his shoulder, meanwhile Pyrrha continued smouldering quietly.

"Wait a minute..." The gears in Weiss's head started rolling, "Two years ago, that means...you were only _fifteen?!_ You had a one night stand when you were _fifteen_?!" Weiss was hollering at the top of her voice, "What kind of debauched and depraved person are you anyway?!"

"Will you keep it down Weiss?" Blake glared at her, "But she's kinda right Jaune, that _is_ a very young age to lose your virginity."

"Well the laws and beliefs are a lot looser in Armorica, it helps to keep the despair and fear away, ..." Jaune gave a sheepish smile and shrugged, "casual sex is fairly often used in the royal enclaves just to find a real relationship, and well I'm sure you'd know, or I guess _I'd_ know..." He grinned, "sex feels good after all."

"This is ridiculous, irresponsible even!" Weiss shook her head, "What about unplanned pregnancies?!" She gaped at him.

"Well never mind all that," Yang continued as she held Jaune tightly, "So what was she like Jaune? What'd she look like? Ya got pictures? How does she compare to...us?" She asked the last question with a low tone in her voice.

"She was a real angel Yang, She was fair-skinned, had long, shiny, silvery hair down to her waist, her bangs framed an oval shape face with the brightest amber eyes I have ever seen, she was tall -my height in fact-, but she wasn't thin at all, oh no she was properly fleshy, B-cup or thereabouts, feisty and temperamental and energetic, but oh so demure in bed, and when she smiled, the whole world would just light up and melt for that one glorious moment." Jaune sighed and looked almost dreamy when he said it.

Everyone could be seen thinking hard, trying to imagine such a girl in their head.

"Whoa," Even Yang seemed incredibly impressed, "You must've had a _grand_ time with her, you ever gonna introduce us?" She grinned.

"No, I was joking." He pulled out of Yang's grip and faced all of them, "I'm still a virgin and that woman in question does not exist, I was just messing with you to see what your reaction was going to be." He smirked, "The law being looser is real though, its fairly easy to find a girl for the night if you just look for it." He chuckled, Teams RWBY and (J)NPR were all exchanging confused glances with each other.

"It was a joke gals." Jaune said.

They all turned to look at him suspiciously.

" _Really_." he assured them.

* * *

 **I'll leave you to imagine whether or not that was a canon conversation.**

 **I wonder if you guys will figure out where that girl in particular comes from.**

 **If keeping negative emotions at bay keeps the Grimm away, I'm pretty sure the government would invest in negative emotion reducing things like...I dunno...recreational drugs...casual sex...extra strong pornography maybe...?**

 **All your reviews, faves and follows are appreciated!**


	15. Much ado about something

**In case anyone is still wondering who the aforementioned girl is in the previous chapter's omake, she's actually all the RWBY girls plus Pyrrha and Nora thrown together in our prince's little head.**

 **Don't believe me?**

 **Silver hair - Weiss**

 **Long hair to waist - Yang**

 **Amber eyes - Blake**

 **Tall - Pyrrha**

 **Energetic - Nora**

 **Smile - Ruby**

 **Did I blow your mind yet?**

 **In other news, I'm glad at least one of you caught on to the changing relationship dynamic between Ruby and Jaune, from fellow leaders in arms to body-guarding a VIP. I intend to explore this further down the line.**

 **Do enjoy!**

* * *

"Why did you lie to her?" Ren asked, Jaune could sense the underlying disgust.

"What lie?" Jaune replied innocently.

"Don't play games with me Jaune." Ren narrowed his eyes, "You have _no_ plans to go back home at all do you." He nearly growled out.

"I never said I had plans to go home." Jaune casually noted, "Whatever gave you that idea?"

* * *

 _ **A week prior,**_

"So…do you think it's a good idea to go back now?" Pyrrha bit her bottom lip nervously as she talked at a screen with her mother's face on it. Currently she was at the top of Beacon's CCT, seated beside her was her partner and team leader, one Jaune Arc who was regarding the conversation with curiosity.

"It's really up to you honey, I can manage fine on my own back here, I mean it was bad at first but after I shifted out into the farmland area things have been a lot quieter."

"I see," Pyrrha pursed her lips, "Do you need me to be there though?"

"Like I said honey, it really is up to you, I certainly wouldn't mind having my little girl back over here even for a while just to see her again, but at the same time I don't want to be interrupting any of your studies."

"Well its summer break mum it's not like there's a lot for me to study or catch up on," Pyrrha chuckled at that.

"Well I will leave it up to you then, I have to go now dear, do at least give me some warning if you choose to return?" Her mother gave a hearty laugh in reply.

"I will you, love you mum."

"Love you to Pyrrha." And with that the conversation ended.

"What was that all about?" Pyrrha turned to face Jaune, who was sitting beside her and watching her intently while he sipped from a can of soda.

"I was just wondering about whether I should go back to Mistral for the upcoming summer break." Pyrrha said, there was a slightly sad undertone to her voice.

"Is it really such a big decision?" Jaune asked.

"Well…I'm just not sure about it." Pyrrha sighed.

"Not sure about going back?" Jaune lifted an eyebrow.

"It's not that, I…" Pyrrha trailed off and twisted her lip, trying to think of how to word her thoughts, "I left quite a bit behind back in Mistral, I'm not really sure if I should go back to it." She finally said.

 _And I'm not really sure if I want to leave you behind Jaune._ She thought to herself.

"What did you leave behind?"

"Various…acquaintances…" Pyrrha looked away when she said, she looked almost…ashamed?

 _Seems like some acquaintances can bring up bad memories…_ Jaune thought.

"I guess from your tone you're not exactly keen on meeting them?"

"…Not really…" She sighed.

"What about your family? I'm sure they miss you quite a lot; don't you want to go visit them? Assure them you're ok, that sort of thing?" Jaune asked.

"I do, but-"

"But what?" Jaune interrupted, "Pyrrha it's your _family_ we're talking about right? It shouldn't be _that_ hard to make a decision." He chided lightly with a small smile and turned around so that he could lean back onto the table.

Pyrrha returned the smile with a smile of her own, "You…really think I should go back? What about you Jaune? What plans of you have for summer?" She asked.

"I was planning on talking with some of my family, catch up on the stuff that I've been missing out, and see what they have been doing in the meantime…" He smiled.

"I…see, you must miss them too." Pyrrha replied.

"I do." Jaune nodded, "my mother and father…aren't really around all that much these days." He gave a weak smile.

"Why? What do they do?" Pyrrha asked timidly, knowing that in the days since the docks incident, family had become a touchy subject for her leader.

"My Dad's a professional hunter; my mother is a bullhead pilot. And together, they fight Grimm!" Jaune balled his fist and pumped it in the air dramatically, Pyrrha giggled on seeing that.

"…Or at least they would be." He sighed and let his hand fall to his side, "I haven't seen them in years since they let my older sister take over the…ah… _family business_." Jaune quickly stated.

"I'm sure it's fine Jaune, if your dad's a hunter then he's probably doing his best to help others." Pyrrha tried to reach out and place a hand on his shoulder to comfort him.

"No its not," Jaune hissed and Pyrrha withdrew her hand uncertainly, "If father had been there, not so many people would have had to die during the breach, and maybe Vicky would have been…" He stopped when he felt the pain in his chest start to well up again and forced himself to calm down.

"Jaune." Pyrrha reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder, gripping it tightly.

"I'm ok…I'm alright." Jaune took a few deep breaths and calmed himself down.

"I…you know the both of us could stay here over summer…" She tried weakly.

"Nonsense." Jaune waved her remark away, "We've both got family to go back to right? We should appreciate them more than that, besides it's not like there's anything to do here without lessons.

* * *

"Stop mincing words!" Ren was finally angry.

 _Since when did Ren get emotional over anything?_ Jaune wondered to himself.

"Mince what words? I said I was planning to hopefully spend time with my sisters, nothing minced about _that_." Jaune walked past Ren and sat down on his bed. Ren sighed and put his head into his hands.

"And how do you possibly plan on doing that?" Ren folded his arms and shot Jaune a glare; the prince-in-hiding ignored it and held his scroll up.

"This of course," Jaune waved it in Ren's face, "Did you forget that these things exist for the purpose of communication or something?"

"So now you're going to play lawyer with your own words?" Ren shook his head in disgust and began walking away.

"What're you complaining about anyway?" Jaune cocked an eyebrow.

"You mean besides the sheer callousness with which you lied to your partner? _Your own partner_ Jaune!" Ren said angrily as he turned around and folded his arms, "and this coming after you just went off on your own to fight the White Fang!"

"I told you already that was a coincidence, _a coincidence_ Ren." Jaune replied in an exasperated tone, "what? You think I actively go out at night to look for fights because I think it's fun or something?"

"I'm concerned that you don't seem to trust your own team, what's worse is that you're our team leader!"

"Ok so it's a little white lie, that's all it is," Jaune sighed, "I really don't know what you're so upset about."

"I just said you don't seem to trust your own partner!"

"Says who I don't? All I told was a little white lie, are you telling me you don't occasionally lie to Nora that you're out of pancake batter when in fact you got a little tired of making pancakes?"

"That's different."

"Well then I guess we should both be glad she's back at the breakfast stall running it now instead of overhearing this conversation."

"You're still going to answer to her when we get back, and I'm not helping you out of that one." Ren rolled his eyes.

"Fine fine, at least you're not going to let her kill me are you?" Jaune asked sardonically, and then swallowed hard when he saw Ren's facial expression.

He just might.

They walked slowly back to their dorm, Ren continued fuming the whole way while Jaune stole silent glances at his only other male friend in the entire academy, when they had finally reached their dorm Ren angrily pushed open the door and nearly slammed it shut, being stopped only by Jaune catching the door and closing it quietly. Ren stormed off towards his bed with a loud and annoyed sigh and started looking through his cupboard for something.

Jaune looked at him go and said, "It's a just little white lie Ren, stop being so melodramatic."

"Melodramatic? Is that what're calling 'concerned for team cohesion' now?" Ren growled as he turned to look at Jaune.

"Ok you're right Ren," Jaune finally gave up, Ren was taken aback by this sudden change, "I did tell a lie, because Pyrrha is such a worrywart, that if I didn't tell her that I was just planning on going back home for summer, she would probably not only decide _not_ to go back home, she might end up staying at Beacon and worrying about me even more, and she doesn't need that." He tried to explain, "She deserves her own time off."

"I think she would prefer to spend that time off with you." Ren muttered under his breath.

"What'd you say? Sorry I didn't hear you mumbling."

"Nothing." Ren finally sat on his bed with a book in his hands, "I'm just really concerned that you're completely fine with this."

"It'll be good for her Ren, seriously lighten up a little."

"You don't even sound that convincing."

"I'm not aiming to get elected to the council if that's what you're asking."

Ren rolled his eyes, "…Why do I get the feeling that you're keeping a lot more from us?" Ren lifted an eyebrow.

"There's plenty of things I'm not telling you," Jaune shrugged as he resumed rearranging his things, "I don't for example tell you every single little detail of my life since I was a child because I know that would be boring, I don't tell you where I go to for a drink if I need it-"

"You drink?" Ren looked flabbergasted.

"Every now and then, and most definitely _not_ in excess." Jaune immediately stated.

 _Uncle taught me how to, part and parcel of the high life I guess._ Jaune thought.

"I also don't tell you about my family's private affairs, I don't tell you about my love life because that's private-"

"You don't _have_ a love life Jaune."

"Ok…well…erm…" Jaune paused for a moment, " _fuck you too Ren_." Jaune growled out.

"None of that matters, because instead of you _not_ telling us, you're actively telling Pyrrha falsehoods, what's she going to think when she finds out? That you don't want her around?" Ren threw his arms up in disgust.

"Well she won't find out if you and Nora don't tell her about it?"

"What're you going to do, bribe us? Threaten us?"

"Ren, I am asking you nicely as your friend to just keep this one thing for me alright? You know, we're the only two males in a circle of females," Jaune sighed, "Would it kill you to show me some support sometimes?"

"If the consequence is a hammer to face, then yes it probably _would_ kill me Jaune." Ren narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brow.

"…You're right I can see that happening," Jaune rubbed his forehead, "Look Ren, Pyrrha's like my mum sometimes, she worries and does her damn best to take care of me so I'm just doing this for her in turn alright? She doesn't need to feel like she has to take care of me at every turn."

"You know Pyrrha really trusts you? You'd shatter her if she found out." Ren sighed, "Alright, just this once I'll help you out, I'm not saving your knees from getting busted though."

"She won't find out, besides I'm sure she'll be all the better for it when she returns so it's not so bad, and yeah I think my legs are going to get ripped off, if I don't survive the bleeding out will you do my eulogy?" Jaune gave a small smirk.

"Sure, 'Jaune was the greatest battle brother anyone could have asked for; he was a noble friend and leader who fought hard for those around him and for the people of Vale. It's just a real shame that his lying caught up to him in the worse way imaginable, killed by one of his very own teammates for making such falsehoods, he will be much mourned by those he left behind'." Ren nodded sagely and looked to Jaune for approval knowing that the knight enjoyed a good joke to ease the mood and make others laugh, surprisingly he found person in question looking out the window of the dorm with a slightly solemn look on his face.

"Well, hopefully it won't end that way…"

"Jaune? Are you alright?" Ren asked with a concerned tone.

"Hm? Oh yeah sure, so just help me out if you see me in too much of a pinch ok?" He gave a weak smile.

It was something strange about Jaune that Ren had been noticing for the longest time, at the drop of a hat Jaune could mood swing from a mostly cheery person to a solemn person and then back to being a cheery person. He seemed to be going for solemn more often these days though, ever since the revelation about his family, he actually seemed a lot sourer, his endless quipping a bit more snide, sarcastic and on occasion outright rude and condescending.

"Uh, sure." Ren nodded, Jaune did not seem to notice Ren's hesitation.

"Great, so all that's left if to-"

"HERE'S NORA!" Nora exploded into the dorm looking positively furious, glaring right at Jaune while waving Magnhild dangerously.

"Start talking Jaune-Jaune, if you don't have a good reason for lying to Pyrrha like that I'll break you so hard your pieces will be pieces!" She threatened while keeping Magnhild hung right over his head.

"Nora put the hammer down…on the floor…slowly…and let me explain myself." Jaune tried his best to sound commanding, although to Ren it sounded more like someone desperate. Nora did not budge an inch and kept the hammer high above his head.

"Look Pyrrha needs her own time off away from me, time on her own to just do her own things so I really think this break will be good for her." Jaune said as quickly as he could while staring down the hammer maiden.

Nora did not look particularly convinced.

"Oh come on you two!" Jaune exclaimed, "I'm doing my best here, a little benefit of the doubt would be nice here!"

"The whole point is that it's even a lie Jaune," Nora growled, "Why on earth did you feel the need to lie to your own partner?!"

"It's good for her." Jaune insisted.

"No it won't be when she finds out."

"She won't find out," That rose eyebrows.

Jaune let out an exasperated sigh, "Look just this once you two, I'm asking you to lay off, you guys trust me right? I _know_ what I'm doing and I promise that

Both Ren and Nora exchanged looks, Nora looked like she was finally simmering down and she was starting to lower the hammer that she held over Jaune's head.

"No more lies from here on out alright?" Ren said firmly.

"Yeah Jaune-y, I'll be watching you." Nora leaned forward and gave a dangerous squint.

"Right thanks guys."

 _This break is going to be painful._ Jaune thought to himself.

Feeling that staying for any extended period of time with either of the two of his teammates both of whom still did not appear very happy or satisfied with him would quickly result in him running afoul of yet _more_ trouble, Jaune decided to get out of the now mostly deserted Beacon Academy and into Vale city, to this end he decided to go find his two new official unofficial Faunus bodyguards.

And so with a quick word and a nod, he left his room to find the ninja catgirl. Blake was found of course, right across the hallway in her team dorm, reading yet another smutty literature novel as Jaune entered the room.

"Did you need something your highness?" Blake smirked as Jaune entered.

"You don't need to call me that," Jaune rolled his eyes, "I was just wondering if you'd like to go out for a while?"

 _Go out?!_ Blake's eyes went wide as she slowly lowered her book, _is he asking me on a date?! But…but I haven't even gotten ready yet! Oh dear oh dear so soon already? What am I going to wear?! I don't have any proper date dress…err…maybe I can borrow one from Yang? But wait no she took everything already oh crap what am I going to-_

"…With Sun, maybe we could even show him around a bit." Jaune finished not having noticed the trance that Blake had fallen into while he had continued talking, Blake snapped out of her trance and focused on Jaune, realizing that she had been daydreaming while he had been talking…

And that he had most certainly not been asking her out on a date that might eventually have led to her marrying into the royal family and using their name to help the cause of all abused and discriminated Faunus around Remnant-

 _No, stop that,_ She shook her head, _you're not here to be his princess you're here to be his bodyguard, oh but didn't he say that his uncle married a Faunus too? Isn't that a chance for you too-_

"Blake?" Jaune called out; once again snapping Blake out of her reverie and making here pay attention to him, "Are you alright? You're kinda zoning out there."

"No! I'm definitely not using you to help my people!" She protested loudly and dropped her book on the bed, Jaune was taken aback and gave her a quizzical look.

 _What did she just say?_

"What'd you say?"

"Huh?" Blake stared at him and flushed a little, "I-I mean…what'd you say?"

"I said 'What'd you say?'."

"Oh err…what'd you say?"

"I just said I asked you what did you say?" Jaune gave her an incredulous look.

"No I mean at the beginning, sorry I…wasn't really paying attention." Blake gave a sheepish look.

 _Oh no, now he's going to think you're some absentminded idiot! Come on get it together Blake!"_ She mentally scolded herself.

"I was asking if you wanted to just go out into the city with Sun, I mean just to hang around and…stuff." Jaune scratched his head.

"Hm, is the prince asking for an escort?" Blake lifted an eyebrow, "Well it's too bad that Ruby isn't here I guess."

* * *

 _ **A few days ago,**_

"So…you're fine with this?" Ruby timidly said.

"Yes Ruby," Jaune exasperatedly said and sighed, "It's perfectly fine for you to go back home for the summer break, I won't chase after you or inflict some silly penalty for you doing so."

"But what about you, don't you need guarding against all the meanies? Who's gonna do that?" Ruby asked with wide eyes.

"Well Blake and Sun are with me so it's not all bad." Jaune shrugged.

"It's just…I don't wanna look like I'm running away from my duty and responsibility you know?" Ruby fidgeted, "I mean I'm supposed to be like your bodyguard now right? Helping you keep your secret prince thing, fighting baddies that might be threatening you? All those things?"

Jaune rolled his eyes, it had taken awhile, but Ruby was finally starting to wrap her innocent little mind around the fact that she was now the bodyguard of actual royalty, and even then she always seemed a little too eager to try and please the prince-in-hiding, she was quickly dismissive of anything that seemed negative and strove to portray a completely positive persona towards the prince. She would always try to impress him somehow during combat class, pulling out flashy moves and stunts that even she would normally never do, sure they were impressive alright, but it was a fleeting feeling.

Evidently, she had quite a few misconceptions about the whole, keep a secret and act normal thing. Still, it was an odd kind of endearing, even though Jaune found it rather bothersome, that and the fact that it felt like she was treating him more for his status symbol and as a person, it was starting to grate on his nerves at times.

And Jaune still had not found out what had happened between her and the Forge.

"You're not being irresponsible Ruby; I mean you have a family to go back to right? It's good that you're going back to see them." Jaune said.

Ruby fidgeted with her hands and feet, unsure of what to say, it was an unspoken rule amongst all of them that they did not talk about Jaune's past given what had happened to Jaune and his family, and then of course there was the issue of your highness…

"I know I know, it's just…" Ruby twisted her lip, "You're a _prince_ , I mean like wow I've never had a chance to meet someone so important before, besides Pyrrha of course but then…it's so…so different," Ruby threw her arms out to the side, "I know Pyrrha is a champion and famous athlete and all but you're like, gonna be the king someday right? And that's…that's different." She finished.

"…Ruby," Jaune put both hands and her shoulders, making her stiffen up and look right at him, "I'm not going to be the king ok? I'm just trying to get through this without losing my life, or anything else."

"…You're not?" Ruby quirked an eyebrow.

"No, the reigning king and queen are my grandparents, my _uncle_ and his wife would be the future king and queen, and I'm just a minor princeling that's only tenth in the line of succession, so you don't need to feel like I'm some overly big important figure." Jaune explained slowly.

* * *

"Why don't you just stay in doors?" Blake smiled, _preferably_ w _ith me, so I can start fulfilling some long held fantasies about princes and ninjas._

"Well I was just hoping we could get some fresh air and all, nothing wrong with that."

"There's plenty of fresh air in the Beacon courtyard."

"And maybe do something interesting while we're at it."

"We've done plenty of interesting things while we've been here already."

"Seriously Blake? Don't you ever get bored of idling here in your dorm?"

"I'm not idling, I'm taking a break inbetween trying to find leads on the White Fang," Blake sighed as she closed her book and put it to the side, it was then that Jaune finally noticed a number of newspapers on her bed, "besides don't _you_ ever get bored of interesting things getting you into trouble Jaune?"

 _Not if they land me with a cute kitty girl._ "Well sure, but hey everyone's gotta have a little excitement, makes normal life that much less boring, besides I wager neither of us were ever meant to have normal lives now."

Blake rolled her eyes, "Isn't it dangerous in any case? We don't know to whom Roman might have gotten the word out to that you're basically a VIP, who knows who might be gunning for your head now the instant you show yourself in public…"

"Well that's what you're around for right? Protect me and all that sort of thing." Jaune waved her remark away dismissively.

"I could protect you better if you just stayed here, and not went out wandering the streets aimlessly." Blake noted.

"Is there nothing I can say or do to convince you?"

"No."

"Well I'll be going then, I just hope Sun can handle anything that happens to me while I'm out." Jaune nodded, Blake watched him walk out slowly and disappear around the corner, she turned to look at the newspapers on her bed, and then turned back to look at the corner.

"…Dammit!" She swore and hopped out of bed.

Before long, the duo found themselves standing within the dorms designated for the teams that would bearriving from the other three kingdoms for the Vytal Festival, Sun had already given them his dorm number and so Jaune rapped his knuckles on the appropriate door in the long hallway.

A few curses and swears, and then a loud crash, pained yelping, _more_ cursing and swearing.

Blake and Jaune exchanged a glance and a shrug.

"Just a moment!" A muffled voice came out,

Jaune lifted both eyebrows while Blake immediately blushed and shielded her eyes when the monkey Faunus opened the door and was revealed in only his boxers, "Hey Sun." He greeted.

"Oh your highn-!" Sun quickly cut himself off before the last word got out of his mouth, thankfully there was no one else around to really hear him anyway, "Er…" He peered out of his dorm and looked left and right, "Do you need something?"

"Not really, I was thinking of just going out into Vale for kicks, you wanna join me? You're supposed to be taking responsibility for that night after all." Jaune leaned in the doorway.

Sun stared at him, while Blake snickered with one hand covering her mouth, and then Jaune's mind clicked.

"Not what I meant," Jaune corrected himself, "I mean technically speaking you're supposed to be my escort now, bodyguard and all that."

"So…I'm supposed to…follow you around and guard from shit happening right?" Sun said slowly.

"…Well this is really awkward." Jaune admitted, "Well truthfully I'm just kinda bored sitting around doing nothing without lessons, so I was wondering if you wanted to join me."

"Ok then," Sun brightened up, "Just let me put my shirt on."

"And your pants."

"Yeah that too."

A moment later and Sun was right back in the doorway with his shirt, that exposed pretty much all of his well-chiselled abdominals, even Jaune could not help but turn his head twice.

"You must enjoy getting all the ladies with that look." Jaune noted as he lifted both eyebrows, Blake had to swallow hard to keep a line of drool from falling out of her mouth.

"Sure do," Sun grinned and put his hands behind his head, "Of course some of them are put off by the tail," He noted, "But who cares? Their loss, they don't know what they're missing." He nodded.

"I can see that." Jaune nodded, "So shall we go?"

A bullhead ride later, and they found themselves walking down a crowded street through the middle of Vale city.

"So…how are you finding Vale Sun?" Jaune asked as they walked.

"Not bad, climate is a little cool though, certainly it seems a lot cleaner than Mistral or Vacuo." Sun answered as he looked around.

"Cleaner? That's certainly not something I would expect as a compliment." Jaune remarked.

"Yeah well Vacuo is near a desert so there's basically sand everywhere, and I mean _everywhere_." Sun seemed to shudder a little, "It gets into everything, your hair, your eyes, and if you're particularly unlucky during a sandstorm it gets into your underwear as well." He explained.

Jaune laughed, "Well then you should come to Armorica one of these days, nothing like an endless drizzle and mud everywhere to make your day even more miserable than when it first started."

"Oh?" Sun lifted an eyebrow

"Especially if you had to train with our Royal Legion like I did, you'll learn to get mud in places you never realised you could." Jaune laughed.

Blake meanwhile, was doing her best not to look absolutely disgusted with the two of them.

They continued walking and talking endlessly with nowhere in particular to go, window shopping as they went along.

"Hey your highness, mind if I ask you a question?" Sun asked.

"It's _Jaune_ Sun," Jaune corrected, "You don't need to be so formal, here in Vale I'm nobody and have nothing to my name."

"Ah sorry about that, it's just…you know…"

"Getting used to knowing royalty on a personal, one-to-one basis?" Jaune lifted his eyebrows, Sun nodded and gave a sheepish smile, "its fine, I got it a lot even at home."

"Yeah, so I wanted to ask…I dunno if you get this a lot but…what's it like being a prince?" Sun scratched his head.

"Er…you'll have to be a bit more specific than that." Jaune noted.

"Like, what do you do all the time? Is it just like parties and princesses and servants serving you all day long? Or is it like an endless desk job signing papers and doing paperwork?"

Jaune allowed himself a small laugh, "I _wish_ it were the former, sadly the only princesses around are my sisters and one cousin, ours is after all the only family that survived the aftermath of the great war where none of the others did, all thanks to my own family of course."

"Wait I'm getting confused which family are you talking about?"

Jaune laughed again, the family trees were rather complicated after all, "The family on my father's side were ardent royalists; my ancestor couldn't bear to see the legitimate king stripped of power at the end of the Vale Succession War due to the other noble families, so he took the whole lot with him, some decades later my father married into the royal family and here I am."

"Here you are, prince hiding out in a combat academy from the White Fang?" Sun laughed a little.

"…Yes…more or less." Jaune finished, "and-"

He stopped when he noticed a message written in red marker on one of the windows of the shop-house they were passing by.

 _Look Left_ , it said.

So he did, and found another message

 _Look straight,_ it said

On the lamppost in front, yet another message

 _Look down,_ it said.

On the pavement right below his fee, one more message

 _Look up,_ it said

Jaune looked up to see, sitting calmly on the top of a roof, a boy who looked slightly older than the group did, he had a short grey Mohawk, a square set jaw, and wore a black jacket over a dark grey shirt with black pants a pair of military style boots.

"Who's that?" Sun asked as one pf his hands went for Ruyi Bang and Jingu Bang

"Well now this is interesting," The boy said, "A prince out and about in the open, I really wonder about all the things that could happen to him…" He trailed off with a menacing tone in his voice.

In an instant, both Blake and Sun had their weapons at the ready, Blake was brandishing her sword while Sun was gripping his combined gun-chuck/staff in both hands, both were ready to pound and dice the hell out of the newcomer who had just threatened his highness, the boy dropped from the top of the roof, slid down the parapet and landed smoothly on both his feet in front of the trio, still smirking widely as he drew closer. Blake and Sun went very tense, both mentally preparing for anything.

Jaune merely tilted his head to the side quizzically.

"Good to see that you've found yourself some guard animals your highness." He stopped just a short distance in front of them.

* * *

 **It's our first major OC, wonder who it could be? Friend? Foe? Neither? Deadpool?**

 **If I'm honest, somewhere down the line I want to do a chapter focused solely on Yang, Sun and Jaune doing stupid things in a Blonde trio of doom/trouble way (maybe I might include Dew Gayle from NDGO for a full on Blonde quartet of Fuck Your Shit Up). Yang and Sun would be coming up with all sorts of crazy ideas while Jaune would be desperately trying to keep them in line.**

 **I actually might do a follow up to the virgin prince next chapter, but until then you'll have to settle for this little piece by yours truly.**

* * *

 **Gentlemanly secrets**

"There's plenty of things I'm not telling you," Jaune shrugged as he resumed rearranging his things, "Where I keep my porn stash for example."

"You keep it in a small cardboard box at the corner of your wardrobe."

"Wha-?" Jaune's jaw hit the floor; he recovered quickly and continued, "Well at least you don't know what's inside."

"You keep the Cat Faunus covers on top with the Bunny Faunus ones in the middle and the Fox Faunus ones at the bottom, all three include incredibly stereotypical and contain somewhat racist imagery including Cat Faunus playing with yarn balls and scratching posts, Bunny Faunus eating carrots, Fox Faunus doing…I don't even want to mention that."

With every new revelation, Jaune's eyes grew wider and wider.

"No one is supposed to know that…" He looked away and mumbled to no one in particular.

"So are you still interested in keeping secrets or are you going to spit it out." Ren had a smug look on his face.

"Look Ren," Jaune tried to negotiate, "We're both men, and I'm sure we both have needs that need to be fulfilled, so can we just keep this as my little secret, I'm sure you too have your own dirty laundry that you don't want getting out in the light."

"I have nothing to hide." Ren stated.

"Oh really?!" Jaune glared at Ren and smirked dangerously, "Should I tell Nora your porn searches consist primarily of tall, dark haired and flat-chested women?"

Ren's eyes went wide, "How on Remnant do you know that?"

"Well it's not like you try _that_ hard to hide it; I mean that's all you've ever done since you downloaded that incognito mode application into your scroll." Now it was Jaune's turn to look smug, "I know that you watch during Professor Port's class when Nora is busy snoring away, I just happened to look over your shoulder one of those days."

"HERE'S NORA!" Nora yelled as she exploded into the room.

"Oh hey Nora, Ren was just about to-"

" ** _YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP_**."

* * *

 **I've always wanted to make a follow up to the Faunophile comment Jaune made way back in chapter 3.**

 **All your reviews, faves and follows are appreciated.**


	16. The Protector

**A much shorter chapter than before, where we get to see the first of our major OCs for the plot**

 **Do enjoy!**

* * *

"Good to see that you've found yourself some guard animals your highness." He stopped just a short distance in front of them.

"Gravelyn? What're you doing here?" Jaune asked with a quirked eyebrow, both Blake and Sun looked at Jaune in confusion.

"You know this guy?" Sun's head flicked between the two.

"Yes…I should, he did save me and my sister from certain death after all." Jaune chuckled, "This is Gravelyn Wells, he saved me that day long ago."

* * *

 _ **Two years ago,**_

"Run…Lizzie," Jaune choked out as the Manticore advanced on them, when suddenly a strange whistling sound went over their heads, and something exploded in the Manticore's face and billowed smoke all over the area, covering both Jaune and Elizabeth.

"W-what's h-happening?" Elizabeth whispered as she continued staying right where she was.

"What's happening is I'm getting you out of here," A voice sounded out of the smoke, and out of the smoke burst a man wearing goggles and a scarf wrapped around his mouth. In one easy motion he swept Jaune up in his arms.

"Follow me; I'll get you to safety." He nodded to Elizabeth who returned the nod and together they ran through the smoke as the Manticore continued roaring in apparent anger at its prey escaping. In a short while they reached a small alleyway where the man let Jaune down, the spike still embedded deep in his lower torso. Jaune was feeling incredibly weak and tired now; he did not even feel any real pain, just a sense of drifting away.

"Brother!" Elizabeth was crying now as she held Jaune's hand tightly.

"Hey hold on now your highness!" The man gripped one of Jaune's hands tightly, "My name is Gravelyn Wells! I'm a protector!" He grabbed hold of Jaune's other hand and squeezed it tightly.

Jaune barely nodded in acknowledgement.

"He's already lost a lot of blood," He ripped Jaune's hoodie open to examine the wound, "Crap I can't take it out or he'll lose even more blood, he needs to get help as soon as he can."

A roar and the ground shook.

"W-what do we do?" Elizabeth asked in a panicky voice.

"We need to get out of here, but that thing isn't making it easy." Gravelyn gnashed his teeth and glared out of the alleyway, "I know a place where we can wait out for reinforcements, it's just a few blocks away, but there's no way we're getting to it from here…we need a distraction somehow."

There was a pause, and then Elizabeth spoke up.

"I can do it."

"Excuse me?" Gravelyn lifted an eyebrow, "You're supposed to be getting away from danger, not running towards it, that's what I'm here for!" He protested, however Elizabeth was already moving.

"You just need it to go away for a while right?" She swallowed.

"No, your highness-"

"Shut up!" She growled, surprising the men, "I can do it, all I need to do is just run really fast right?"

"…yes but-"

"Lizzie…what're you…" Jaune's eyes widened as he realized what Elizabeth was going to do.

"It's ok brother, you're going to be alright, I'm definitely gonna save you." She said determinedly. However Gravelyn caught her arm and held fast.

"No, I'm sorry but I can't let you your highness," To his surprise the young princess suddenly lashed out with her foot, and slammed it right into Gravelyn's shin, the surprise attack knocked Gravelyn away and he stumbled back while Elizabeth ran out of the alley.

On seeing the Manticore, her breath caught at first, but she pushed it away and sucked in a breath of air, "HEY!" She screamed at the Manticore prowling around looking for its prey, it turned its head to regard the little girl screaming at it with some curiosity.

"Come and get me!" She shouted and ran for it darting into another alleyway across the street, the Manticore responded to the challenge appropriately, with another earthshaking roar and followed by a chase as it crashed into several buildings.

"Wait a minute! _Fuck_!" Gravelyn swore.

"You…you gotta go get her…" Jaune pleaded, Gravelyn grit his teeth.

"Unfortunately," He looked at the prince with solemn eyes, "She just gave us our only chance to get out of here." He gave a grim look as he picked Jaune up again and ran as fast as he could out of the alley and the now deserted streets.

"What're you doing?!" Jaune protested.

"Saving your life your highness." Gravelyn stated grimly.

"What about Elizabeth?!" His eyes went wide.

"I hear the young mistress is sharp of mind and fleet of foot, perhaps it is best that we trust in her judgement and her skills and get you out of here and someplace safer as soon as we can." Gravelyn stated.

Jaune wanted to make another protest but found himself far too weak to do so.

"Do you know of the safe-houses your highness?" Gravelyn asked as he rounded a corner.

"Designated safe zones in the event of…a breach."

"Yes, here is one…" Gravelyn made his way down a flight of steps to a set of doors that appeared to lead to a basement of some sort for the apartments in front of them, he rammed it with his shoulder and cursed as it failed to open.

"Is anyone there, I need help here!" Gravelyn called out.

"Go away! They're too many here!" A voice came out.

"I have a _prince_ bleeding out in my arms here! _So open up the goddamn door_!" Gravelyn yelled.

There was a momentary pause, and then the door creaked open slowly…

Gravelyn wasted no time in kicking it open all the way and rushing in, nearly tripping over the middle-aged man that had opened the door, he immediately ran to the side, passing several confused men and women and children who ducked out of the way and lay the bleeding prince against it.

"Listen to me, help is on its way ok? You're going to be just fine your highness," Gravelyn perched him against the wall and squeezed his hand tightly, "I've already called for help, reinforcements are on their way so just stay with me ok?"

"Make sure he stays awake!" Gravelyn roughly grabbed one of the other men shook him roughly before turning back to the prince, "I'm going out to get the princess your highness, just stay awake, everything will be fine I promise."

"Yeah…sure…" Jaune was feeling faint, his vision was getting blurry, it was becoming harder and harder to breath, his eyes closed..

"Hey…err…hey! Your highness, don't close your eyes ok!" Another man shook him roughly by his shoulder and gripped it tightly.

Jaune's eyes shot open momentarily, he weakly regarded the man kneeling beside him.

"You're going to be alright Mr. Prince!" A cheery voice sounded out, there was a young boy, could not have been older than ten or so, sitting beside him, even though Jaune really wanted to stay awake, it was just getting…

So…

Difficult…

Darkness faded in again, and then…

"Brother!" Elizabeth called out and raced to her brother as a battered Gravelyn shuffled into the shelter. By this point however, Jaune was just too weak and could barely muster a response as Gravelyn moved over to him with the princess, he no longer could even find the strength to keep his eyes even half open.

"Hang on your highness, you're going to live! You hear me?! You're going to live!"

And then darkness took over.

* * *

"I kinda drifted out after that, when I woke up it was…" Jaune trailed off as he wracked his brains.

"It was a week after the breach Mr. Arc." Gravelyn smiled, "You woke up in the hospital."

"Yeah that." Jaune's eyebrow twitched as he remembered the pain of those moments, "You unlocked my aura didn't you?"

"Indeed, it was the only thing that kept you alive Mr. Arc, otherwise you'd be six feet under by now in a wooden box." Gravelyn folded his arms.

By this time, both Blake and Sun had lowered their weapons, although the newcomer still seemed somewhat suspicious and shifty to them, in the very least it seemed that Jaune trusted him.

"Yes…yes I would." Jaune nodded and looked at both Blake and Sun, "Gravelyn is a Royal Protector, a title given to those who become the personal guards of various individuals of the royal family, he is technically my older sister Marina's protector, but…" He turned back to Gravelyn, "It seems she has gotten rid of you."

"Not really," Gravelyn shrugged, "After the crown prince learned of ah… _certain events_ from just a short while ago…" Gravelyn trailed off to let the thought sink in, "He decided to detach me from your sister and assign me to you until such time as he deems it safe for me to return to Armorica."

"Huh," Jaune scratched his head, "So _that's_ what he meant that time…"

* * *

 _ **Sometime ago,**_

"Hey uncle? Yeah this is Jaune…no no I'm fine everything's going along swimmingly here…yes I know but I wanted to ask if you were going to be the Vytal tournament's guest-of-honor?... What? But I don't need a…I-I see, I understand your concern but…of course…yes…when does _he_ get here?" Jaune sighed in resignation.

"Not so soon of course, I know Marina can take care of herself just fine without Gravelyn, you on the other hand are still an inexperienced young man, in the event of another such incident like this I shall

"Uncle I don't need anyone looking over my shoulder, it will draw attention to me."

"Obviously he won't be joining you at Beacon, he will instead stay a resident of Vale, and keep watch over you from there although…operational requirements might necessitate a different approach if he so chooses."

"Then I hope he's subtle enough with whatever approach he chooses, the students here can be quite sharp on their own, and I'm not even counting the professors here."

"Do you doubt the protectors that much Jean?"

"I've always doubted them since that day."

* * *

"Yes, your extended family is rather concerned for you your highness." Gravelyn stated.

Jaune scoffed at that, "Thank goodness hm? If only my immediate family cared as much, I suppose my fath- _the duke_ and duchess are still nowhere to be found?"

"Not as far as I know your highness."

"…Well, it's not like we expected them to just pop out of the fold anytime soon…" Jaune looked up and away into the distance rather aimlessly, Gravelyn following his gaze.

"…I suppose not your highness."

A moment of silence passed between them before Gravelyn continued talking.

"So who are your new friends your highness? Like everyone else important I have already read the message the headmaster sent back detailing the steps that he had undertaken in order to ensure that another incident like that at the docks does not happen again" Gravelyn stepped forward and gave an inquisitive look at both Sun and Blake

"This is Sun Wukong and Blake Belladonna." Jaune gestured to the people in question.

"I do believe the report mentioned three…" Gravelyn noted.

"The last one is…erm…" Jaune struggled to find an answer, "Away." He finally said.

"Away." Gravelyn repeated with skepticism in his voice.

"Yes, away."

"I am to believe you granted her a leave of absence?"

"Yes…yes I did."

"Huh, I see." Gravelyn nodded his head, "And as for the two of you…" He turned back to them.

"I'm not going to let you look down on us just because we're Faunus." Blake hissed.

"Alright I admit that was a rather mean thing to say," Gravelyn smirked and scratched his head, "I just wanted to see how badly you would take it, Faunus outside of our enclaves are of course rather unfortunate in that regard aren't they?"

"I suppose so." Jaune turned to look at the two; Sun had a nonchalant look on his face while Blake was scowling at the prince and the protector.

"And here I thought a person from the royal enclaves would have been more open-minded, I guess I was wrong about some things." Blake folded her arms and rolled her eyes.

Gravelyn merely let out small laugh at it, "She really doesn't get it does she?" He turned to Jaune who shrugged, now Blake had a confused look on her face.

"Don't get what?" She growled.

"It _really_ was just meant to be a joke." Jaune tried to clarify, although Blake did not look particularly convinced, "the people of the royal enclaves are a strange bunch, we don't have high walls around us to protect the city, relying instead on masses of militia guarding a frontline, it was a pretty dull, dark and dreary business." He took a breath, "They say you don't ever leave the royal enclaves without picking up a sense of humor," Jaune paused as he looked thoughtful, "Come to think of it I think Yang would fit right in." He nodded.

Blake still looked rather angry.

"But in any case, what _are_ you doing here anyway Gravelyn, you didn't really come all the way here just to do a checkup did you?"

"Well of course, I have to test your new bodyguards skills as well." Gravelyn said in the most light-hearted manner.

"Excuse me?" Blake said incredulously.

"You doubt us?" Sun raised an eyebrow.

"Indeed," Gravelyn bluntly stated as he nodded, "No way in hell am I leaving the prince to some _ruffian monkey_ and _aloof cat,_ I'll see for myself personally if you're worthy of being the prince's protector, even if it is an unofficial arrangement." He finished.

Blake and Sun exchanged a glance, and a smile crossed their faces.

"Bring it on gravy train!" Sun grinned, "I'll show you a thing or two!"

"I have no problem with this." Blake simply said.

"Great!" Gravelyn smiled, "So does this place have an arena or something?"

"It'll be back at Beacon," Jaune nodded.

One bullhead ride later, not too long after that, and Gravelyn was walking through the halls of Beacon alongside the trio.

"Huh, so this is Beacon, seems like a pretty grand place to be, it certainly has more work put into it than the royal palace.

"So what weapons do you use?" Sun asked as they walked to the arena.

"Ha! Already trying to gather intelligence huh?" Gravelyn smirked and looked at Sun.

"Well hey, I'm just being curious" Sun shrugged.

"Hm, I guess I don't really mind." Gravelyn reached into his bag and pulled out a pair of single-edged swords with a gun mounted on the back of the blade.

"This is Typhoon," He held up the gunblade with the silvery handle and guard, "And this is Cyclone," The other gunblade had a much darker and greyer look than the shiny Typhoon, "The blacksmiths wouldn't let me anything any more complicated than this, so it's basically just a gun with a long blade stuck on it, nothing really special compared to what you hunters must use on a daily basis."

Jaune stifled a laugh as he remembered the long suffering Vulcan.

"Well I guess that's interesting, how good are you at killing Grimm?" Sun stroked his chin and regarded Gravelyn carefully.

"I don't really know, but I'd say I'm pretty good, don't do it too often though, it's not in the job description, my place is beside the royal family, I prefer to leave that shit to the royal legion and the militia." Gravelyn explained.

Before long they had arrived at the arena, that place where students were given the opportunity to work off any frustrations and problems they had on other students in controlled environments. Gravelyn put his bag down at one side and hooked both swords to his belt before zipping up his jacket.

"So how do you wanna go?" Sun asked, "Just a one on one or do you think you can take me and Blake at the same time?" Sun gave a cocky smile.

"One on one of course," Gravelyn scoffed, "I'm not insane enough to try to take on _two_ hunters-in-training at the same time."

"Then I'll do it." Blake immediately stepped forward.

"What? You sure about this?" Sun asked.

"Of course," Blake nodded, "This is just a simple test to see if we are worthy of being Jaune's protectors, I'll definitely do it." She had an incredibly determined expression on her face, the same sort of expression both blonde males had seen her wear just before she decided on something she _really_ wanted.

That tuna sandwich during breakfast, for example.

Unlike the pancakes and waffles over which Nora and Ruby frequently fought over, Yang was kind enough to her partner to always set aside some tuna and sardine sandwiches just for Blake.

Both took up positions on opposite ends of the arena and readied their weapons, Blake with Gambol Shroud and Gravelyn with Typhoon and Cyclone.

"Uh…" Jaune looked between the two sides, "I guess…standard rules apply? Anyone who gets below 15% aura level is out…erm…3…2…1…go?" He said as he lifted an eyebrow.

And then it was on.

Gravelyn opened fire with his gunblades, Blake either deflected or dodged between the shots while responding with her own gunfire and began closing the distance between the two. Gravelyn held his position and when Blake flipped up to come crashing down on him from above, he jumped back to avoid it, and then dashed forward again, their blades met in a flurry of rapid fire slashing and parrying, echoes of metal clashing furiously with metal sounded out all over the arena as the two fighters took turns baiting and attacking each other without letting up.

Eventually though, they slammed into each other and pushed each other away, circling and twirling their weapons dangerously, their eyes locked onto each other, attempting to anticipate each other's movements.

 _Man what I would give for some popcorn right now._ Jaune thought to himself as he sat down beside Sun to watch the rest of the fight.

Both Gravelyn and Blake went at each other with everything they had, one desiring to defend and uphold the honour of the royal protectors and the other desiring to earn the approval of said royal protectors.

And to a certain extent, think about becoming one in the future.

…Maybe…

Well as a backup in case the whole "huntress" thing failed to work out anyway.

Both remained cautious as they went at each other, testing each other, prodding and poking at each other's defences and techniques. Blake would dash forward and let rip with a flurry of slashes, Gravelyn would respond by jumping back with, parry and slash and attempt to counter with a close range shot, Blake in turn would deploy her semblance to take the attack, and then reverse to the side to counterattack.

Their tempos rose as the fight went on, Blake's attacks got harder and faster as she used her semblance to make feints, reverse and change her direction of attack, Gravelyn however was just as agile and was starting to be able to predict her pattern of attacks fluidly enough that he could counterattack effectively, both participants were able to land some hits one each other in this way, but nothing decisive enough to end the match.

As the match wore on, both were getting increasingly tired, and were trying to come up with ways to end the match as soon as possible.

And then out of nowhere, Gravelyn reached into his jacket and tossed a round object at Blake.

"Wha-" Blake immediately jumped back to put distance between herself and the object, instead of an explosion though, a bright flash of light and an ear-splitting bang erupted from the grenade. Even Jaune and Sun were taken by surprise and were left with their ears ringing amid muffled sounds of shots being fired and blades clashing, when they came too, they found a peculiar sight.

Gravelyn had one of his swords at Blake's throat.

Blake had her sword at Gravelyn's abdomen; most curiously, her bow was on the floor, exposing her cat ears for everyone to see. And then a realisation hit Jaune.

"She may have been blinded, but since her 'other' ears were covered it wasn't as badly affected by the noise, she must've used that to sense Gravelyn through her blindness." Sun nodded as Jaune explained.

"Yeah, weird how that thing ended up helping huh?"

"Not bad…didn't anyone could deal with that…" Gravelyn had an impressed look on his face, "Part and parcel of a protector's job is dealing with unexpected surprises."

"Not the first time…I've dealt with stun grenades before…" Blake smirked.

Both were panting, the exertion visible on their sweat covered faces, Gravelyn had a mostly impassive look on his face while Blake maintained her determined look as they held their swords at each other.

To everyone's surprise though, Gravelyn lowered his swords and smiled "Alright, I think I've seen enough, you're pretty good." He said as he sheathed both of his swords and backed away.

Blake had a look of confusion on her face, but kept her guard up in case the protector had any more surprises in store for her.

"That was quite the spectacle, impressive effort from the both of you." A voice came up, everyone jumped a little and turned to see it. Standing behind Jaune and Sun, Headmaster Ozpin with his signature coffee cup.

"Headmaster!" Jaune greeted, Ozpin saluted with his coffee cup in return.

"Good afternoon Jaune, who do you have with you?" He asked.

"This is Gravelyn Wells; he's one of the Royal Protectors." Jaune nodded to the person in question who bowed in greeting.

"A pleasure to meet you headmaster Ozpin." Gravelyn smiled.

"And to you, I assume you were sent here for his highness's safety?"

"Indeed, after certain events, the crown prince is…" Gravelyn paused as he tried to think of the right way to phrase his answer, "Less than pleased with the way things have happened, therefore he has seen fit to ensure that one of our own is keeping a watch on his highness." He finished.

"Hm, I suppose that does make sense, you're welcome to visit the academy whenever you need to Mr. Wells."

"Thank you headmaster." Gravelyn then turned to Blake, "Well I guess that's it then, you've certainly proven yourself to be a very capable fighter, I do believe I can rest assured that his highness is in good hands." He bowed his head a little.

"Of course he is, I'll make sure of it." Blake returned the nod.

"And you can count on me too!" Sun chipped in.

"Ah yes…I'll be sure to make a note of that as well." Gravelyn dryly remarked, "Still though, I'm sure that as the headmaster of Beacon that you're on top of everything, the House of Vale _is_ putting its faith into you to keep his highness out of trouble."

"I'm honoured that the House of Vale would have so much faith in me." Ozpin bowed and smirked.

"Well as the headmaster of such a prestigious academy, it's only fair to give you such a privilege; after all, it wouldn't do to have any unforeseen circumstances that we might not have anticipated for." Gravelyn returned the bow.

 _Wait, what's going on here?_ Jaune watched the exchange of words between Gravelyn and Ozpin with some consternation.

"No…no it wouldn't." Ozpin furrowed his brow momentarily before his face relaxed again.

"Err…ok…?" Sun looked between the two nervously.

"Oh silly me look at the time." Gravelyn pulled back one of his sleeves and checked his watch.

"I suppose I should be on my way now, thanks for the fight kitty cat," He nodded to Blake who merely lifted an eyebrow in response, "And thanks for having me your highness, headmaster Ozpin, I suppose I should be on my way now."

"I'll show you to the bullheads." Jaune said, still not quite sure what was going on.

A little while later, after they had said their goodbyes, the trio watched the bullhead as it pulled out of Beacon and went to Vale.

"Well…that was interesting." Sun put his hands at his side and twisted his lip.

"I wonder what that was all about." Jaune noted as he watched the bullhead disappear into the distance.

"It really did seem like Gravelyn and Ozpin knew something." Blake agreed.

"Well let's hope it was nothing, I don't really want to know about any unforeseen circumstances."

"Let's hope…" Jaune said slowly as he turned and walked away followed by Blake and Sun.

* * *

Gravelyn watched the prince and his Faunus guards turning away from the bullhead as it pulled out of Beacon, as he took a seat his scroll started ringing, with an annoyed grunt he took it out of his pocket.

"Yes?" He answered.

"What have you found out?"

"It appears the prince is unaware of the queen."

"You are certain?"

"There is no way he would be so cavalier if he knew."

"And Ozpin?"

"He probably knows, but he doesn't know _we_ know."

"…So what do you suggest?"

"You just stick with sitting at the back," Gravelyn smirked, " _I'll_ handle the prince and little Ozzy."

* * *

 **Sorry, no deadpool here.**

 **To explain Gravelyn's weapons, they're not dissimilar from Emerald's own revolver sickles, unlike Emerald though Gravelyn's blades are fixed in position and do not fold back, they are also magazine-fed rather than using a revolving chamber.**

 **I imagine he has a sort of punk-ish look to him, greyish hair, wearing a mohawk, black jacket and pants, that sorta stereotypical look, I know its not something you might've expected if you thought of a bodyguard, but I really wanted to do something different than just have some knight of some sort show up and be all overbearing.**

 **To make up for this rather shortish chapter, I have an extra long omake planned for this, basically a what-if follow up to the virgin prince from chapter 15, this is the single longest omake I have ever written, its partly also a what-if for an idea I had prior to actually writing out the fic.**

 **I hope you do enjoy!**

* * *

 **Virgin Prince, Hypothetical route**

 _"Whoa," Even Yang seemed incredibly impressed, "You must've had a grand time with her, you ever gonna introduce us?" She grinned._

 _"Maybe, we'll see..." Jaune laughed._

 _..._

Another day, another walk down the Beacon Academy halls, rubbing her forehead in an oft-suffering manner...

Professor Glynda Goodwitch ladies and gentlemen.

Between dealing with the resident prince-in-hiding, the endless shenanigans of his teammates and Team RWBY, and then having to explain themselves every now and then together with Professor Ozpin in front of the Crown Prince. Glynda's stress level was often through the roof, and this was discounting having to deal with the rest of the student body on a regular basis.

 _Unfortunately_ for her, she was about to get one thing to deal with today.

As she walked through the hallway to her office, she spied something strange,

A young-looking girl with silver-hair to her waist passed across the hallway aimlessly pushing a baby pram and looking to and fro rather curiously. She wore a white blouse underneath a blue cardigan sweater, and a long yellow skirt that went past her knees.

Glynda was struck for a moment by the sight and had to take of her glasses and rub her eyes to make sure she was seeing things properly; she certainly had never seen such a student or staff member around in the Academy, and therefore concluded that either it was some intruder or an illusion.

She had hoped dearly that it was an illusion of some sort.

Unfortunately it was not, and she watched as the girl suddenly stopped in the middle of the hallway and went to front of the pram where she crouched down to apparently play with…a baby in the pram.

Well now…that was something else.

"Excuse me!" Glynda called out, attracting the attention of the girl who looked up to see the Professor walking towards her with a curious look on her face.

"…Yes?" She answered and stood up.

"May I know who you are? I don't think I've ever seen you before, I'd like you to know you need a visitors pass in the academy."

"Ah, my apologies," The girl gave a quaint little bow and smiled, "The front door was open and no one told me otherwise until you did."

Glynda's eye twitched; clearly _someone_ had not been monitoring security.

"Be that as it may, I'll need you to identify yourself and state your business here." Glynda sighed and took out a pencil.

"Hm…I'm Clarice Arc, nice to meet you," She stuck her hand out, Glynda took it warily with a raised eyebrow.

 _One of the prince's sisters? But what's she doing here? Visiting her brother? I was not forewarned of this._ She wondered internally.

"Glynda Goodwitch, and what are you doing here Clarice?" As Glynda said that, a cry sounded out from the pram, Clarice immediately darted to the front with Glynda following.

Inside, a baby reached out eagerly with a smile to Clarice as the baby played with Clarice's fingers as the girl pinched the baby's cheeks with a smile.

"Is he yours?" Glynda asked.

" _She_ is mine." Clarice corrected with a smirk.

"So…" Glynda was feeling rather awkward as she watched the young mother play with her child, "What are you doing here Clarice?"

"I'm here visiting her father." Clarice said without looking away from the baby.

Glynda ran through a mental checklist, she knew that many of the staff members had families of their own, but she doubted if any of them had ever brought their families to work before, besides she had not heard of any of them being the prince's brother-in-law or something.

"Her father?"

"Her father, yes indeed." Clarice nodded and finally got up.

"And who is that?"

"Ah, you may have heard of him, his name is Jaune Arc." Clarice nodded, "Do you know where I can find him?"

Glynda's eyes went wide as her jaw hit the floor, her arms went slack and her clipboard fell out of her hands.

"E-excuse me?" She said meekly.

"Jaune Arc, why? Is he in trouble?" Clarice noted the growing look of consternation on the professor's face.

Jaune Arc, tenth in line to the throne, had a wife? Better than that, he already had children?

It was so unbelievable that for a moment, Glynda felt like smacking the girl just to see if she would retract her statement. Then again, the royal enclaves had their own little traditions and culture, maybe one of them was early marriage? Who knew? She had never personally been to any of the four enclaves.

"Err…does he know of this visit?" Glynda asked.

"No, I was trying to keep it a surprise." Clarice explained, "Do you know where he is now? I seem to have lost my way and can't find him…" She gave a sad sigh and looked down, Glynda looked emphatically at her before shaking her head and speaking.

"I think I know where we can find him, follow me please." She said, at that Clarice brightened up considerably and nodded with a smile.

At this time, the only place the prince-in-hiding and the rest of his little crew would most likely be would be that stall in the courtyard.

And so they want, with Clarice pushing the pram and Glynda in front, round and across and up and down hallways and stairs until they reached the open air courtyard. There, alongside several other students were Teams JNPR and RWBY sitting together as usual.

"There he is-" Glynda tried to speak but Clarice had evidently spotted her target and was already moving forward quickly.

"Jaune!" She called out happily, the person in question turned around in his seat at the mention of his name, just in time for Clarice to grab him by the collar and press her lips against his own.

Everyone's jaws hit the floor at the sight.

Pyrrha's fork twisted rather unnaturally.

And then to everyone's surprise, Jaune leaned into the kiss, one his hands grabbing Clarice's shoulder and slowly brought her down to the bench until they broke apart gasping.

"Clarice? What're you doing here?" Jaune asked with a wide grin on his face.

"I came to visit you dummy," She cupped his chin mischievously, "and I brought Clarity of course, she misses you." She rolled the pram towards them, Jaune was struck with wide-eyes and she undid the seatbelt and passed a squealing Clarity to Jaune, the baby eagerly reached out with her arms to hold her father as Jaune took her in his arms and held her close grinning stupidly.

Meanwhile, the remainder of Teams RWBY and JNPR were still struggling to process all of this information.

Surprisingly –or unsurprisingly- Weiss reacted first.

"Jaune…who is this?" She asked slowly.

"Oh this is my wife Clarice, and my daughter Clarity." Jaune said simply.

"Wait a minute…" Weiss held her forehead and tried to process this new information, "You're married…and you have kids already…how long?"

"Two years, Clarity is just a year old." Jaune nuzzled the baby who squealed gleefully.

"Two years…so you were fifteen…and it was legal and everything?" Weiss looked from one to the other.

"Yup, it's a lot freer in the Royal Enclaves than it is here." Jaune nodded.

"…ok…" Weiss looked down at the table and went back to her nails, a standard habit of hers denoting disinterest and perhaps in this case, a lack of wanting to understand further.

"Hang on a minute…" Yang scratched her head and took in Clarice's features, "Silver hair, amber eyes…hey!" She slammed her fist in her palm in understanding, "You're the girl Jaune said he had a one night stand with!"

"Yeah…I guess that kinda got out of hand huh?" Jaune smirked; Pyrrha meanwhile had her head on the table, musing quietly to herself in dismay over realizing she had been chasing a married man with an apparently loving wife and child. Nora patted her on the back comfortingly.

"Ooh." Ruby suddenly dashed from her side of the table to the other side to look on the baby close up with curiosity, "Well hello there." She leaned forward and smiled at Clarity, who laughed and clapped her hands.

"Do you want to hold her?" Jaune asked with a smirk, Ruby's eyes widened.

"Can I?" Ruby said eagerly.

"Sure, just be careful." Jaune carefully handed Ruby the baby, Ruby cooed as she took Clarity carefully in arm.

"Hm, are all of these your friends Jaune?" Clarice asked as she looked around the table.

"Yep, this is Ruby right here," Jaune patted Ruby on the head before looking across the table, "And that's her team, Weiss, Blake and Yang." He nodded at each, "And this is Pyrrha, my partner, and teammates Ren and Nora." Pyrrha managed to force a smile on her face when he said that while Ren and Nora merely exchanged a glance with each other.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all." Clarice bowed her head.

"So…" Yang made a devious grin.

"Don't you start…" Blake rolled her eyes.

"Oh quiet you," Yang huffed, before turning back to Jaune and Clarice, "So…since you two have a child I wager you must… _nooky_ a lot no?" She just loved the opportunity to tease the couple.

"Yang that's totally inappropriate!" Weiss looked aghast.

"Well I admit it does get boring whenever Jaune isn't around…" Clarice nodded airily and gave a knowing look at Jaune, who to everyone's surprise, laughed at Yang's comment.

"By the way sweetheart," Clarice turned to Jaune, "Why are all of your friends so coincidentally girls?"

* * *

 **Poor, poor Pyrrha, I put _way_ too much time and effort into this…anymore effort and it would have become it's own fic featuring JaunexOC**

 **I just wanted to try and see if I could create a happily married, drama-less couple in a mutually loving relationship.**

 **Partially based on an earlier idea wherein the Schnee family would have been distantly related to Atlas's royal family, Weiss would've met with Jaune when they were kids while the House of Vale was hosting the SDC for some event, cue the adults attempting matchmaking for the prince and the heiress by leaving the prince to entertain the heiress.**

 **NO they do not end up doing the horizontal tango (Winter would've immediately stepped in if they had gone any further), but they do strike up a close friendship and both are sad to see the other go.**

 **Cue cliché tsundere childhood friend shenanigans when they see each other at Beacon.**

 **Anyway I appreciate all your reviews, faves and follows!**


	17. Summer Daze

**Rather than try and create another chapter or two featuring the things that Jaune and the rest of whoever was still in Beacon would have been up to, I decided to try something new, instead of a whole chapter, this chapter is 6 short stories featuring all sorts of things that Jaune was up to during summer break.**

 **I also call this chapter the reference chapter.** **Most of it is basically referencing a bunch of things that were said in previous chapters, I'll point them out as we go along.**

 **I hope you enjoy this!**

* * *

It was a dark and stormy summer night, the rain fell in a torrential wave of liquid water, the gusty winds kicked up all manner of things and sent them pattering against the walls of Beacon Academy…

…

No not really, actually it was a rather bright and sunny summer morning, Team JN(P)R were resting in their bunks after the daily manning of the breakfast stall, business was slow of course thanks to the summer break with few students being around to serve in the first place, and so they closed early to take a break.

It was also unbearably hot, seriously.

Which was why the air conditioning was cranked as low as possible, and so Jaune lay as still as a statue in bed, soaking in the cool, dry air, listening to music on his scroll with his earphones on…

Blissful peace.

 _The days they pass so quickly now_

 _Nights are seldom long_

…

"I wish!" Jaune rolled his eyes and sat up straight in bed, both Ren and Nora looked at him simultaneously from where they were sitting on their beds.

"What's up leader?" Nora raised her eyebrows

"Something wrong Jaune?" Ren looked up from his book.

Jaune looked at the both of them, it had been a few days since summer break had started, they had sort of, probably, possibly, _hopefully_ cooled off since the first day when they had giving Jaune a harsh ripping for lying to his partner and basically sending her away back to her home. Jaune still maintained that the time off would be good for Pyrrha, both remained rather wary of him for that lie, at the moment though there was little they could do about it, it was not as though they could force him to call Pyrrha and admit to her while she was in Mistral that he had lied to her.

Well they technically _could have_ , it just would have resulted in a potentially miserable Pyrrha while she was away in her homeland with her family.

At least they had been able to come to some sort of understanding in the meantime.

"I'm bored." Jaune said and removed his earphones, switching off the music, disconnecting his earphones and keeping them in his pocket.

Ren looked shiftily left and right, 'I'm bored' was usually the sort of thing Nora said right before she announced a brilliant idea that she probably come up with in about five seconds and now wanted the rest of the team's help in implementing. It was the sort of phrase that signaled bad things were about to happen to the only other male in the Team RWBY/JNPR circle of hunters-in-training.

On the other hand, besides that one lie, Jaune had otherwise proven himself to be a fairly reliable and capable person, so perhaps whatever he was going to say bore some worth of listening to.

Hopefully

"We need to find things to do." Jaune said.

And so, as summer break wore on, Jaune Arc, secretly a prince of Vale and tenth in line to the throne of the House of Vale set out to find things to do. Kind of like a Knight Errant from a fairytale, except _way_ less dramatic.

* * *

 **A little something to start off with, the song line is from John Denver's _Poems, Prayers and Promises._**

* * *

 **Shopping trip**

"So you guys just go and get everything else while I get the pancake mix!" Nora cheered and dashed off, Jaune looked at Ren who merely shrugged and moved on pushing a shopping cart as he went. Jaune followed closely as they maneuvered through the large supermarket.

"So Ren…" Jaune looked between the shelves of the supermarket, eyeing various brands and flavors of pasta sauce.

"Yes Jaune?" Ren responded from behind him, their backs were to each other facing opposite shelves, Ren was checking through the canned soup section.

"What're we looking for again?" Jaune asked as he took one of the cans and looked it over.

 _Made with 100% Organic ingredients, whatever that's supposed to mean…_ Jaune read one of the labels and put it back.

"We're running low on ingredients at the breakfast stall, business may not exactly be booming right now but I just want to keep a small stock just in case." Ren answered.

"Say Ren…" Jaune turned around to regard the martial artist, "Where _do_ you keep all of these things anyway? Do you have like some hammerspace bag or pantry from a videogame or something? Is it a secret compartment accessible only to you? An underground storage facility?"

Ren looked over his shoulder and rolled his eyes before turning back to the shelf, "I just borrow one of the pantries from the dining hall." He answered.

"...Oh…" Jaune turned back before he realized something and turned back, "Hey isn't it a bad idea to let Nora go off on her own like that?"

"She prefers to pick her pancake mix out herself; no way anyone is stopping her or telling her otherwise."

"Heh, sounds perfectly like Nora." They moved on as Ren picked out the items he wanted while Jaune merely looked about, browsing through the various items available for sale as he followed Ren. They were mostly minding their own business when they had a scream.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE'S NO MORE PANCAKE MIX!" A shrill scream erupted through the store and sent a shiver down the spines of the two males; they exchanged a glance, a synchronized swallow, a nod, and then dashed off to stop the hammer maiden from potentially destroying something.

At least it did not sound like it was far away, as they ran between shelves, past confused shoppers, flustered store attendants, and came upon a rather frightening scene.

There was Nora, a vein looked like it was about to pop on her forehead, her whole face was reddened and she wore one of the blackest looks Jaune had ever seen anyone give anyone else. That look in question was being directed at a terrified store attendant who was backed up against the wall.

"What." Nora said slowly,

"Do you mean," She advanced dangerously towards the rapidly shrinking man,

"There's," She balled her fists and raised them,

"No more pancake mix!" Nora hollered again and shook her fist in the man's face.

"W-well…y-you see m-miss-"

"Nora!" Ren called out, attracting said person's attention.

"Ren! Leader! They don't have pancake mix!" Nora shouted.

"It's ok Nora!" Ren called out, "We'll just go somewhere else! Right Jaune?" Ren looked at Jaune for support.

For a moment, Jaune contemplated leaving Ren to figure it out in the same way that Ren had almost left him to figure Nora out when they had been very angry with him for lying to Pyrrha, he maintained it was all going to be fine, besides, he had probably dealt with this situation multiple times already right? He dismissed the thought though and quickly acted to try and calm the hammer maiden.

"Ren's right Nora, there's bound to be lots of other places to buy pancake mix from, so just calm down and we'll go search for it alright?"

"You…you really think so leader?" Nora sobbed.

"Yes, we'll definitely find some more pancake mix, so let the store attendant go alright?" Jaune pleaded.

"I don't know Jaune-y, what if you're lying to me?" Nora had a suspicious look on her face.

 _Well…how am I supposed to respond to that?_ Jaune wondered.

"Because I'm vouching for it, and I say that if this store has no pancake mix, then we'll go to another

 _Saved._ Jaune let out a small sigh.

A little while later, Jaune and Ren were walking down a street, Nora was just a short distance in front of them.

"Well that could've gone way worse than it did." Jaune whispered.

"…Yes." Ren deadpanned.

"Is she usually this emotional?" Jaune asked.

"Not really, even Nora has a limit she won't cross; I wonder what happened this time…" Ren scratched his head.

"Maybe it's because you've been telling her-"

Ren shot Jaune a dark look to shut him up.

* * *

 **Jaune is referencing Ren lying to Nora about having run out of pancake mix, Nora is obviously referencing Jaune lying to Pyrrha.**

 **Ren isn't referencing anything.**

* * *

 **All Quiet on the Home front**

Jaune stared at the screen in the CCT, waiting for a response to his request for a link back to the Arc family mansion in Armorica where he hoped his older sister Princess Maria of Armorica, current governess of Armorica would be.

A beeping sound announced that a link had been made.

"Hello? Oh young master!" An elderly maid greeted with a bow of her head, Jaune smiled.

"It's good to see you too Maylene, how have you been?"

"Just fine, thank you for asking young master, is there anything you want in particular?" She asked.

"Is Marina there? I'd like to talk to her." Jaune asked.

"Of course young master, you're just in luck, I believe the mistress has just returned home, please wait a minute." Jaune nodded and sat back as Maylene disappeared from view, a few minutes later and the face of a tired and worn out woman appeared on the screen. She had hazel brown hair in a bobcut, a pair of dark-rimmed glasses, a sharp nose and thin lips, despite the dark eyes she looked rather pleased with a small smile.

Princess Maria of Armorica, better known as "Marina Arc", seventh in line to the throne of the House of Vale, one half of a set of identical Arc twins, the other half currently in Mistral on some business of her own, private business apparently, since Crystal Arc only barely kept in contact. Despite the official title of Duke and Duchess of Armorica never having been passed down, Marina had taken up the responsibility of governing the city in the absence of her parents; she had done so with the approval of the king and the queen and had surprisingly taken to the job with great enthusiasm.

Well she was not the Crown Prince's favorite niece for no reason.

"Hey sis, how have you been?" Jaune did a little wave.

"Good evening Jaune, although I suppose it's technically the afternoon there isn't it? The sun is about to set over here." Marina answered, "Well I suppose I shan't hide it, as you can probably see I haven't a wink of sleep in a day or so, I also haven't eaten since yesterday so my stomach is running on less than empty, and dealing with the Council of Vale is starting to give me a massive headache." She dryly remarked.

"…Perhaps I should call later? This doesn't seem like a particularly good time." Jaune grimaced.

"Nah, I wouldn't miss a beat for my only brother." She shook her head.

"So…how are things at home?" Jaune asked.

"Jaune…" Marina sighed and rubbed her forehead, "You know you didn't have to stay at Beacon over summer, you could have returned home, it really wouldn't have been a lot of trouble for me, besides you really ought to have visited Vicky at least."

"How is Vicky?"

"She's not getting any better if that's what you're asking, I may be standing in for the duke but I can't be everywhere at once, that's why it would've been better if you had returned, she needs family now and no one is around to support her." Marina explained, Jaune could only look away in shame.

"What about the rest of our dysfunctional family?" Jaune asked meekly.

"I still haven't heard from Crystal, but I know Annie should be back in a few days time from Vacuo, also Janice might be around in Vale for the Vytal Festival later this year."

"Really?" Jaune was struck by the thought of seeing his twin sister.

"Yes, I hear she's been doing great things in Atlas in the course of her stay there." Marina nodded.

"A genius as ever huh? Is she still stuck on her medical tech work?"

"I think she's moved on to something else actually, robotics or some such shit like that." Marina smiled when she said that. Jaune laughed, upright and proud Marina would never normally swear or curse like that in front of anyone except her family, whereupon her vocabulary could –and sometimes would- almost certainly drive the most innocent man or woman red-faced on hearing it.

"Huh, well that'll be something to see."

"Probably, by the way…" Marine paused, "How are you and Gravelyn getting on?"

"He's adjusted very well, I think he likes Vale."

"Huh, well I guess even he must be glad to be rid of me." Marina smirked, she held a reputation in Armorica for having a near unbendable will and zeal towards the city, its inhabitants, and her assistants. As long as they came through for her she would gladly come through for them, but cross her the wrong way and well…

She was not called "Iron bitch" behind her back for nothing.

"I'm pretty sure the city would fall apart at this rate if you upped and vanished for no reason." Jaune tried to make a joke.

"Ha! We'll see." Marina straightened her glasses, "Maybe I should consider taking a vacation one of these days, see how everyone gets along once this 'iron bitch' disappears for a while."

Both laughed, but Jaune knew that Marina was too hung up on her duties to ever for a moment consider taking a vacation, besides where would she go anyway?

* * *

 **Reference Jaune saying he was going to talk to his family over the break.**

 **I wanted to start introducing and developing Jaune's family, especially his solder sisters after all of you have already seen the younger triplets.**

 **Arc children from oldest to youngest, its Annie, Marina, Crystal, Janice, Jaune, Elizabeth, Catherine and Victoria.**

* * *

 **The Bunny-girl**

There just was not much to do the academy when classes were not active, Jaune swore he already gone through almost everything of interest to him in the library. He had already run a few errands for whatever things and help the few remaining staff members needed, he would have spent more time down in the armory but Vulcan had headed home as well.

Jaune sighed as he turned a corner in the hallways of the Beacon Academy…

And promptly ran into someone else, sending a stack of books crashing to the ground.

"Oh, sorry!" Jaune quickly bent down to help gather up the books.

"No no it's alright! I-" The voice of the other person came out, and then Jaune looked up and noticed a pair of bunny ears on the other person's head.

"Velvet?" He asked with a quirked eyebrow.

"Oh it's you Jaune!" The bunny girl smiled awkwardly as she began gathering up her books, "You didn't go home for summer?"

Jaune laughed as he stacked her books and stood up and handed them back to her, "No…I guess not…" He scratched his head awkwardly, "And what about you? Did you not go back for summer?"

"No, both are parents are rather busy and I don't really want to disturb them with my presence." Velvet pursed her lips.

"Ah, I see." Jaune nodded, "While I guess I have to say the same for myself, most of my family is out anyway, there isn't much point in me heading back home."

Jaune had not talked to Velvet much in… _ever_ really, besides that one time helping her out when the lugnut was being a jerk and that other time when she repaid that help along with the rest of Team CFVY by helping them out at the breakfast stall, they had not seen each other much except in Professor Oobleck's class.

And then he had a brainwave.

 _Maybe I could take her out or something as a group of Faunus together with Sun and Blake? Besides I know Sun likes Blake so this could be interesting…_

"Say…" Velvet looked thoughtful, "I never really thanked you in person for helping me out with Cardin did I?" She asked.

"It's alright, besides I can't thank you and your team enough for helping us with Nora's breakfast stall, we were really in a rut when Ms. Adel stepped in to help us out."

"Aha, well Coco has always had an eye for design so I think it was her pleasure to help you out with that."

A moment of silence passed between them.

"I…guess I'll see you around Jaune?" She smiled and nodded.

"Actually…" Jaune started slowly as Velvet's ears perked up, "You planning on doing anything today?" Velvet shifted a little.

"Well…not really I guess?" the Bunny said awkwardly, not knowing where Jaune was planning on going with this.

"You know if you're getting targeted by assholes like lugnut Winchester, you could always hang out with other Faunus you know, I know a few that you could hang out with."

"Actually Cardin has stopped making fun of me, I guess you really did a number on him whatever happened at Forever Fall."

"Well ok, that's great, still I could really introduce you to some other Faunus, I mean it'd be nice for you to have more friends right?"

"Thanks a lot for the offer Jaune, but perhaps some other time? I sort of have some business to attend to…" Velvet giggled a little and smiled awkwardly.

"Ah I see, well then I guess I won't take up anymore of your time, see you around Velvet." Jaune moved past and waved at her.

"I'll see you too Jaune." Velvet nodded as she walked away.

* * *

 **It really feels like everyone EXCEPT Pyrrha is going to find out that Jaune stuck around in Beacon instead of going home huh?**

 **I was actually rather unsure and indeed a little wary of this one, because it creates the implication that Jaune is giving Faunus special treatment as opposed to treating them as just "people". This was originally supposed to be a rather cute one with Jaune plus three Faunus on an outing, unfortunately I decided to cut it short because I was not so sure about writing that.**

* * *

 **Bookstore things**

"Do you read a lot Jaune?" Blake asked as they walked down a street.

"I did most of it when I was a kid, reading stories and fairytales and occasionally historical novels and such, but I have sort of… _dropped off_ …you could say." Jaune answered.

"Dropped off?"

"I've…not had much time to…read since…yeah."

"Oh…" It was probably inevitable, given that the intense training schedule would have given way more for Jaune to do, leaving little time for recreational reading.

"Well since we're free, why don't I take you to a bookstore I know." Blake smiled, "You can catch up on your reading."

"I dunno Blake, you don't need to-" Jaune had an awkward look on his face but was interrupted by Blake.

"Nonsense." Blake tugged on Jaune's hand and pulled him along, "Come along your highness, you should take some time off to relax for yourself too." She had a mischievous look on her face.

"…Whatever you say Blake." Jaune could only muster a weak smile.

And a short while later, they stood in front of a shop named _Tukson's Book Trade._

"We're here." Blake nodded and entered the shop with Jaune following close behind.

On entering the shop, Jaune was surprised to see a rather burly man behind a counter, he waved as he saw them come in.

"Welcome to "Tukson's Book Trade", home to every book under the sun!" He smiled, "Who's your friend Blake?" He asked.

Thanks to his association with a certain monkey Faunus, Jaune's mind immediately conjured up an image of Sun sitting on a mountain of books smiling and waving cheekily, he shook the image out of his mind as quickly as it had come.

"This is Jaune, I'm trying to get him to pick up his old reading habits again."

"And what about you? Still maintaining _your_ old reading habits?"

"Oh…well you know…" Blake smirked.

Jaune gave a confused look before a realization hit him, "Oh…so _you're_ the one who sells Blake her smut." He grinned devilishly.

"It's literature." Blake corrected angrily.

"Oh that's right I completely forgot," Jaune nodded, "its smutty literature."

"It. Is. Not."

"Smut or literature?"

"The former."

"You keep telling yourself, maybe one day it will come true." Jaune rolled his eyes; he had said the exact same thing to Blake not too long ago.

"So…is there anything I can help you two with?" Tukson looked between the two.

"Yes, hand over your particulars so I can issue a warning about bookstore owners being completely willing to sell smut to underage children." Jaune deadpanned.

Both Blake and Tukson stared at him, Blake in particular had a rather murderous look on her face that said 'I don't care if you're a prince; you're still going down if you so much as even dare to think about that again.'

"A joke," Jaune tried to save himself, "That was a joke."

* * *

 **Because what kind of a bookstore sells smut to children anyway? Blake had to get all of that lovely lovely explicit material from _somewhere_.**

 **I wish there was a picture of Sun standing on a mountain of books just for the sake of that pun.**

 **I did not include a reference to the White Fang here because if the White Fang operate in cells like most terrorist organizations, it's unlikely that Blake would have known that he too was a former white fang member.**

* * *

 **A Club for simpletons**

"And the first meeting of the 'club-for-anyone-who-doesn't-have-one-of-those-stupid-godawful-mecha-shifting-weapons' is hereby commencing!" Vulcan cheered.

"Woohoo!" Winnie blew a whistle excitedly while hitting a triangle.

"Yay." Emil deadpanned as he beat on a drum.

Meanwhile, both Jaune and Yatsuhashi stared at them.

"Question." Jaune raised his hand.

"Speak." Vulcan raised an eyebrow.

"Why am I even here?"

"Because I am getting so sick and tired of those bullshit fucking hunter assholes that come into _my forge_ and dump their stupid fucking weapons with me and expect me to give that many fucks for each and every one of them!" Vulcan started swearing loudly, " Seriously, I've had enough of that bullshit, 'Help me repair this!', 'I need this by tomorrow', 'Put this at the top of your list' Fuck 'em all! What am I? A machine?!" She shouted angrily while shaking her fist in the air.

"Please watch your language…" Emil tried to say.

"Who gives a fuck?" Vulcan rolled her eyes, "It's not like Professor snooty Badwitch is around to say otherwise."

"Thank goodness that scythe girl isn't around to!" Winnie cheered.

"Yes." Vulcan growled out, " _especially_ that one…that…" She stuttered and stumbled surprisingly.

"Ruby." Jaune said.

"Yeah that one." Vulcan nodded, "And that partner or yours as well, god forbid one of these days that it breaks down in the middle of a fight."

As much as Jaune wanted to defend both Ruby and Pyrrha, he simultaneously did not feel like getting into a cursing match with Vulcan, he would most definitely lose that one within a few rounds.

"Why the fuck can't everyone just use fucking normal swords and guns! Why does everyone have to put flamethrowers on spears use shifting weapons that don't make the least bit of sense to anyone with any sense at all!"

"Now you're just complaining about doing your job." Emil sighed, "And are you drunk? Why are you ranting so much?"

"I'm not drunk," Vulcan said, right as she took out a canteen and took a swig of some liquid, causing everyone to raise eyebrows.

"…This is not appropriate at all Ms. Vulcan." Yatsuhashi finally spoke up

"Shut your damn trap Yats."

* * *

 **This one actually takes place before summer break; it's a reference to Vulcan wanting to set up a club for only simple weapon users like Jaune and Yatsuhashi. At the moment obviously, only Jaune and Yats are a part of it, somewhere down the line I may include the Vytal Festival competitors. Sage, Scarlet, and May are all ideas for their more simple weapons.**

* * *

 **Return**

Jaune stood together with Nora, Ren and Blake at the edge of the landing pad outside of Beacon, in the distance, they could see airships approaching signaling the arrival of the students coming off of summer break.

"Summer break passed by really fast didn't it?" Jaune said.

"Soon it'll be back to more classes." Blake nodded.

"Are you ever going to tell her?" Ren looked at Jaune.

"Yeah, Jaune-Jaune, you'd better tell her someday," Nora glared, "Or would you like _us_ to tell her for you?"

"Look you guys, I _will_ eventually tell her the truth alright? Trust me she'll be happy that she went back home."

"What're you all talking about?" Blake gave all three of them a strange look.

"Jaune told Pyrrha he was going home when in actuality he stayed at Beacon obviously." Ren flatly replied. Blake's eyes widened and she mouthed a silent "oh" in response before looking at Jaune.

"I guess you should do it sooner rather than later, circumstance may not be so kind to you." Blake smirked.

"Seriously? You're gonna parrot my own words to me?" Jaune rolled his eyes.

"Well hey, since I failed to learn your lesson, shouldn't you be learning your own lessons as well?"

"Practice what you preach!" Nora nodded.

"…That's…true…" Jaune sighed.

"In any case, here they are." Ren pointed out as the first airships landed.

First out was...

"Weiss?" Jaune raised an eyebrow as the heiress walked out.

"Can't believe I wasted my time, it's all just the same as usual, I shouldn't even have bothered with this!" Weiss was growling and grinding her teeth so much she almost did not see the four of them.

"Weiss!" Jaune called out again.

"What do you want?!" Weiss railed against Jaune before realizing who it was, "Oh hi Jaune, how was summer in Beacon?" She dryly stated.

"Fine, you seem to be holding up well." Weiss rolled her eyes at his remark.

"Yeah sure, just let me get my stuff back in my room." She waved and walked off.

"…She didn't seem very happy." Nora watched her go.

"Ya think?" Jaune smirked.

Next was Yang and Ruby,

"HEELLLOOOO BEACON!" Yang cheered loudly with her arms outstretched, "Your queen, Yang Xiao Long is here!" She pointed at the academy dramatically.

"Yaaanngg." Ruby pleaded, "You're going to make everyone deaf."

"Hey Yang, Ruby." Jaune smiled on seeing the two sisters.

"Oh hey Jaune, how are you?" Yang smiled on seeing her fellow natural blonde.

"Hey Jaune!" Ruby perked up considerably on seeing her fellow leader-in-arms and prince-in-hiding.

"Hey Ruby." Jaune smiled at the perky reaper.

After pleasantries were exchanged, they left Jaune and the others, with her team already here, Blake left with them, leaving JN(P)R to wait for their last member.

And so did she appear a few more minutes later, stepping out of the airship, crimson hair billowing in the wind, her mouth widened into a smile as she saw her teammates.

"Hello again Jaune." Pyrrha smiled brightly on seeing him.

"…It's good to see you Pyrrha." Jaune returned the smile.

Ren and Nora exchanged a knowing glance at that.

* * *

 **Reference to Fresh Prince of Beacon's conversation between Jaune and Blake.**

 **And I doth end this chapter, hopefully you enjoyed it, if this format is popular enough I might try it again whenever I need to put in filler material. Obviously this chapter doesn't have an omake since you just got 6 of them.**

 **And that's the end of Volume 1.5, Volume 2 starts next chapter!**

 **All your reviews, faves and follows are immensely appreciated.**


	18. New Things and Old Things

**V2 kicks off, not with a _Yang_** **as one might expect, but with another dream sequence.**

 **This chapter is coming in a little late, but considering I posted the previous chapter early do give me a bit of leeway hm?**

 **Do enjoy.**

* * *

" _This is folly!" Jean banged his fist on the table angrily, "Not only would you seek to depose of the rightful heir to the throne, but you would also refuse to grant the Faunus people the rights that they have been seeking for so long?!" He demanded angrily._

" _And you would deign to grant them as such?" Vermillion of the House Winchester raised his own voice, "Look at how much this war has cost us already! Do you want to start another war?" He pointed out with narrowed eyes._

" _The Faunus people don't want another war that's why I'm trying to do this!" Jean insisted._

" _Giving them their rights now would spark a second war, why can't you see that?" Vermillion shot back._

" _Vermillion is right Jean, rights for the Faunus can come later, the most important thing to do now is to secure our weakened borders against the Grimm-" Fuchsia tried but was quickly interrupted_

" _Oh stop giving pithy little excuses for inaction," Jean waved his hand dismissively, "All your borders have been safe since the war while my own are insecure since my army is down here and not back home!"_

" _Then why don't you hurry up and march them back home?" Fuchsia of the House Thrush rolled her eyes, "I'm sure they're all wondering what their purpose here is while their own families back home are probably suffering."_

" _The Faunus people will not be quiet, they will not accept this! Not after they have sacrificed so much for us, by doing this you are asking for another war! The very thing which you claim you are trying to prevent!" Jean banged his fist against the table again._

" _How can you be so sure of that?" Fuchsia raised her eyebrows, "Face it Jean, you're only doing this for that fox whore of yours that you adore so much."_

 _Jean was taken aback by the insult, and then he grit his teeth in anger, "Robina is not a mere 'whore' as you would put it so, she and her people have done just as much as any of us has done in war, in fact more so than any of you have!" Jean raised his voiced loudly, "Where were you when I needed assistance during the long journey between my home and Corlayn? I would have failed several times over if it weren't for her; she was instrumental in the final assault on Vale! I myself owe her my life and so do you." He glared at each and every one of them._

 _There was some shifty mumbling and awkward glancing around the room; Jean hoped that that would be enough to persuade a few voices around the room to his side._

" _Only you Jean, only you…" Jean was stunned by the words, he looked around the chamber at the faces of the other nobles, all of whom either had dismissive looks on their faces or were not even bothering to face him at all._

" _I see…" He backed away from them, "So this is how it is then," He gave one last look around the chamber before saying, "I'll definitely get what I promised for Robina and her people, you'll see." He walked out without another word._

 _He went away from them, he could no longer bear to be inside that stifling chamber arguing, one voice against so many others, it was too tiresome, too…exasperating for him, a soldier who had fought from one battle to the next to deal with._

 _Never had peace been so irksome._

 _And so with haste he made his way to the entrance of the chambers where he knew his companions awaited him._

 _Both Mitch and Mason were sitting down on the steps, watching a certain ranger pace back and forth in front of them anxiously with boredom. Mason even let out a great sigh as Jean drew closer to them._

" _Will you just sit down already woman? You're going to give me a headache watching you go like that." Mason chided, to everyone's surprise Robina actually stopped and looked at him._

" _If your headache would spurn the council to faster action than I would gladly pace a thousand times and more just to ensure that they moved faster on this issue." Robina directed a sharp glare at Mason, and then she turned her back and looked out into the distance at the setting sun._

" _It's been over five hours now! What on Remnant is-" She turned around to look and only then did she realize that Jean had been watching them for some time now, "Jean!" She blurted out, "What happened? How did the summit go?" She asked eagerly, her eyes shone with hope. This was the man who she had allowed to drag all the way out of her comfy forest, made her go to a war she was perhaps a little less than enthusiastic about, lose people she considered to be nothing less than family, and all because she sincerely believed in the dream of one day being able to achieve equality for all her people._

 _And so she had followed him, believing that with the effort she put in, she would achieve enough status within the eyes of others that she could conceivably influence the peace that would eventually have to follow the war. With that in mind, she had put all her heart and soul into battle as much as she hated it, using her skills for the benefit of the Army of the Duke of Armorica, hidden paths that enabled shortcuts to winding routes, screening the front before a battle, performing scouting, hundreds of arrows fletched and shot by her bow, sharp knives that tore throats and limbs apart, axes that crushed heads and chopped bodies into pieces, years of blood and gore and the stench of battle that she would never be able to get out of her nose, dead friends who just got unlucky, maimed friends crippled for the rest of their lives, so many sacrifices made on the road to victory._

 _She dared to hope that it had all been worth something._

 _For all the sacrifices made, for all the blood split, for all the tears that had flowed, for all the sweat that she had spent, there had always been that nagging fear, that little part of her mind that doubted the cause that she had taken up, doubted that things would ever truly change, doubted that any of her efforts would ever be worthwhile, humans after all, were nothing if averse to change. Still she had shaken off those thoughts time and time and time again, refusing to ever give into despair even through the moans of the dying, hoping in the change that she could one day bring._

 _And yet, as she looked into the eyes of the man who she had followed for years since her days in the olivewood, those tired blue eyes of his that she often found herself thinking about, she could immediately tell that all was not well._

 _And then old fears gripped her heart once again._

" _Robina I…" Jean tried to say but stopped and merely hung his head in shame._

" _What happened? Did it go well? What did the other nobles say?" She asked with wide eyes even as she felt her heart sink._

" _I'm…I'm sorry…" That was all she needed to hear, she did not hear him protesting, and did not see Mitch and Mason exchange an awkward glance._

 _She simply turned on her heel and walked away before they could see the tears in her eyes._

* * *

Jaune's eyes snapped open, just another dream.

Just another morning waking up in his dormitory, he sat up straight and stretched his arms out, feeling the blood rush all the way to his head, making him a little dizzy; he turned to his side to see Pyrrha still sprawled out haphazardly over her bed like she always was. Looking at the other two beds showed that they were empty; Nora and Ren were obviously at the breakfast stall.

 _Huh, I guess Jean and Robina had to have had their own rocky parts in their relationship; at least it's not another battle sequence._ Jaune pulled himself out of bed and got dressed; he looked for a moment at Pyrrha and recalled Ren and Nora's endless egging him on to spill the beans about not going back home.

 _Does it really matter so much? She's happy isn't she?_ He wondered.

 _Isn't she?_ A voice at the back of his mind clawed at him, _why would you deceive her? Was it necessary to deceive her? Maybe you could've just told her and she would have gone on her own?_

 _No!_ Jaune shook those thoughts from his head, _she wouldn't have gone if I had said I wasn't going, she wouldn't have left if she knew I would be staying here, besides she looked happy, so I'm sure she was glad that she had a chance to go home._

* * *

 _ **The previous day,**_

Both the now completed Teams RWBY and JNPR were seated at their usual spot at the breakfast stall eating snacks together and eagerly discussing what they had done during the time that they had spent away from Beacon. In particular, Yang was egging Blake on and on about what Sun and she had been up to while they had been at Beacon.

"C'mon Blake!" Yang insisted, "Don't tell me Sun and you didn't try to get up to anything sexy during your time together here." She teased.

Blake was not about to tell Yang that most of the time that she had spent with Sun had included a certain prince-in-hiding, even Sun seemed more controlled around Jaune than he normally was, and so had restricted himself to some mild flirting and off-the-cuff commenting. It seemed like knowing that a person of such authority was hiding out in their midst could have quite an effect on people.

"No we did not," Blake stated firmly, "And stop asking as if it's what really happened." She gave Yang a bit of a stink-eyed look.

"Aw lighten up kitty cat, come on you know it wouldn't hurt for you to ease up a little." Yang continued and tried to poke Blake's cheek.

Blake swiftly batted the intrusion away and rolled her eyes, "You on the other hand must have had a lot of time to _ease up_ back home." She countered.

"Eh…" Yang raised her arms and shrugged with a smirk, "You'll never know Blake."

"I don't want to thank you very much." Blake narrowed her eyes and went back to her book.

"So…how was your break Ruby?" Jaune asked.

"It was…nice." Ruby said as she adopted a thoughtful expression, "I mean we got to see our father again so that was good, our uncle is out though, doing another mission far away from the city so we didn't see him, it was a good break though, saw some old friends, talked to them about how Beacon was like, that sort of thing." Ruby nodded.

"At least you got to see your family again," Weiss sighed and rubbed her temple, "My father as usual too busy to see me, and my one older sister also too busy to see me on my return, I spent the whole of summer break just moping around aimlessly." She grunted.

"Aw, poor you." Yang sarcastically replied.

"And what about you Pyrrha? How was going back to Mistral after so many months here in Vale?" Jaune turned to his partner.

"Well, to my surprise…" Pyrrha cracked a small smile, "I was actually able to clear up some personal things of mine while I was back home, so yes I did have a good time Jaune, I'm quite glad I was able to go back." She nodded, there was not a trace of irony in her voice, and Jaune had to fight back an urge to give Ren an "I told you so" look.

* * *

Jaune was jolted out of his thoughts when an alarm began ringing, he turned around and found Pyrrha desperately trying to grab for the scroll on her bedside table while groaning out loud in pain and frustration. With an amused smile adorning his face, he walked over to the alarm and switched it off, ending the high-pitched ringing noise.

Pyrrha gave a sigh of pleasure and squinted as Jaune sat down on her bed.

"I've never heard you use an alarm before, so what's so different about today?" He asked as she sat up and yawned while rubbing her eyes tiredly, she mumbled something unintelligible in response.

"Uh…sorry I didn't hear you there Pyrrha." Jaune said as he leaned in closer to her, Pyrrha dropped her hands to her sides and gave Jaune a rather dreamy, sleepy look with a smile on her face.

 _Damn does she look good in that tank t- stop that._ Jaune quickly shook the thoughts from his head as he stood up.

"Well if you're awake shall we head to breakfast then?" He said as he sat back down on his bed and tried to ignore the image of Pyrrha in her sleeping attire.

Pyrrha yawned one more time before she smiled and finally replied, "I'd like that." She said as she finally started getting out of bed and dressed while Jaune checked his scroll, finding nothing he tucked it back into his pocket and lay back down to wait for his partner. Soon Pyrrha herself was dressed and the duo were making their way to their usual spot in the courtyard where Ren and Yang would bemaking breakfast as usual.

"So Pyrrha." Jaune said out of the blue, startling aforementioned person who turned to face him as they continued walking.

"Yes Jaune?"

"You still haven't answered my question."

"Uh, what question?"

"What's so different about today?"

"What do you mean Jaune?"

"Well you woke up really early for some reason," Jaune shrugged, "You even used an alarm, and so something _must_ be going on."

Pyrrha froze for just a moment, she was not about to tell Jaune one of the things she had been doing over the summer break had been asking her mother for tips on how to get Jaune to notice her more, her mother of course had taken to the task with great enthusiasm, one of the tips of course being a suggestion that she try to change herself to fit the schedule of the person she was trying to get the attention off.

Apparently, it seemed to be working for Pyrrha.

"I just felt like trying to change my sleeping patterns would be good, you know wake up earlier, have more time to do things in the morning." She tried to wave it away as best as she could.

"Huh…is that so?"

"Yep." She gave a perky smile, hoping it would dispel any doubts that Jaune had.

"Well alright, I just thought it was a bit strange for you to do that." Jaune nodded along as they walked.

 _Well at least he's noticing me more, hmm what else can I do? Maybe change my hairstyle?_ Pyrrha ran one of her hands through her hair, she was proud to an extent of her long crimson hair and how she wore it, she wondered what Jaune's reaction would be if she changed to something different.

 _Maybe cut it short?_ She wondered absentmindedly and giggled to herself.

"You seem rather happy." Jaune remarked.

 _Being around you makes me happy._ Pyrrha thought to herself but said nothing and merely hummed a non-response and continued walking along while Jaune stopped to scratch his head.

"…Ok…?" And he quickly followed behind.

Before long they were approaching the now somewhat-famous breakfast stall, it was surprisingly crowded with plenty of other students, Ren and Yang could be seen busily going at it within the stall itself while Nora was flitting about like an energetic butterfly from table to table taking orders, Weiss and Blake were sitting quietly at one table.

"So how's everyone today?" Jaune greeted.

"Great!" Ruby grinned.

"Just fine thank you." Weiss said without looking away from her nails.

Blake grunted a non-response without looking up from her book.

"Well I'm just going to get something to eat, tea Weiss?"

"Sure thing Jaune, just get me Earl's Grey with a teaspoon of sugar, about five drops of condensed milk, a table spoon of honey, warmed gently not boiled, prefer to have the teabag taken out and served with plain biscuits." Weiss rattled off in a single breath.

"…Excuse me?" Jaune lifted an eyebrow, and then to everyone's surprise Weiss laughed.

"Just get me the usual you poor dolt." She smirked.

"...Right I'll just be a moment." Jaune walked off to get the aforementioned items.

Pyrrha grimaced at the conversation but hid it; it was obvious that Jaune had gotten closer with Weiss and Blake in the aftermath of that incident at the docks, the three obviously had a lot to bond over considering their shared experiences and past with the White Fang terrorist group, and then there was flirty Yang and a shared leadership role with Ruby. In contrast, what did she have in common with Jaune? A desire to save the world maybe?

Nevertheless, she was not about to give up, not even close, besides there did not appear to be anyone who had even showed a hint of romantic attraction to Jaune, and in turn he did not show any sign of attraction to anyone, so he was still open and free for the taking.

Once she was able to of course.

Jaune returned with a tray of pastries and tea which he poured out for himself and Weiss while they all waited for the crowd to simmer down a little, since the main stallholders Ren, Yang and Nora were usually busy both teams preferred to wait until everyone else had finished so that they could eat together without being disturbed.

In the meantime, the other five of them snacked on various pastries, with Ruby hogging most of them for herself and munching until crumbs were all over her mouth, resulting in a scolding from Weiss.

"Stop that Ruby! You're making a mess of yourself! What're other people going to think?" Ruby stopped at once and looked at Weiss.

And then looked at Jaune out of the corner of her eye.

Jaune raised an eyebrow.

Ruby proceeded to take a napkin and wiped her mouth of and settled in to a slower pace than before.

"Thank you." Weiss sighed as she rubbed her forehead.

They continued on in silence as the crowd drew down slowly until there were only a few people left and finally, Ren, Yang and Nora could leave their posts and join their teams with several plates of food.

"Man I'm bushed," Yang took a sharp breath of air and let it out, "This breakfast thing can really get you worked up can it?" She nodded to Ren.

Ren returned the nod, "Yes, I think it's rather fulfilling though, being able to help others."

"Well if this hunter thing doesn't work out for either of you there's still a career in restaurants." Jaune joked.

"Hah! Yang Xiao Long's foodstuffs and hunting business! We'll feed 'em after we beat 'em!" Yang pumped a fist into the air to smiles all around.

They all settled down to breakfast, passing the food around, at some point Nora and Yang got involved in a game of throwing grapes into each other's mouths.

At one point, Nora narrowed her eyes and took up another grape as Yang looked to be just as concentrated on the matter.

With a flick, she sent the grape…upwards?

A high lobbing arc, Yang immediately leaned back as far as she could while keeping a firm grip on the table, and let the grape land squarely in her mouth.

"Got it!" Yang cheered.

"By the way guys," Ruby reached down below the table and with a great heave, slammed a massive binder onto the table, causing everyone to jump, she cleared her throat and stood up.

"Sisters…" She nodded at Yang, "Friends…" She spread her arms out to encompass everyone, "your hi-" She barely cut herself off when she looked at Jaune and shook her head, "I mean Weiss…" She looked at Weiss and quickly corrected herself.

"Hey!" Weiss said indignantly.

Ruby ignored her and continued, "Four score and seven minutes ago, I had a dream…"

"This is gonna be good." Yang smirked, and then turned her head to catch another grape and gave Nora a thumbs up.

"A dream that one day, all of us will come together, as one, and have the most fun anyone has ever had... ever!" Ruby pumped a fist high into the air.

"…Why is Weiss's name on the binder?" Jaune asked.

"Thank you." Weiss shot Jaune a look.

"I am not a crook." Ruby made a 'peace' sign.

"What're you all making so much noise about?" Blake put her book down and looked around.

"I'm talking about kicking off the semester with a bang of course!" Ruby pointed at Blake.

"I always kick my semesters off with a _Yang_! Eh? Guys? Am I right?" Yang grinned while everyone else groaned.

"C'mon Jaune! Show me some support here!" Yang gave Jaune a pleading look.

"I don't think-"

"Boo!" Nora jeered and threw an apple at Yang, it hit Yang smack in the face, Yang glared at Nora and threw the apple right back, unfortunately her aim was rather off, and instead it went right to the resident prince-in-hiding.

"Hey!" Jaune cried out as the apple bounced off his head before he could block it, on instinct he grabbed a half-eaten sandwich and threw it at Yang, Yang immediately deflected it…

Into Weiss's teacup, spilling tea all over Weiss's lap, the heiress shot a dark look at Yang.

"Uh…sorry?" Yang tried as everyone looked shiftily at everyone else.

"FOOD FIGHT!" Nora screamed.

 _Oh crap._ Jaune thought.

And then it was on.

Nora struck first, slinging a pie right into Weiss's face and sending the heiress toppling out of her seat. Ruby responded by throwing a glass of milk at Nora.

And that was just the opening round of the fight, the few remaining students vacated the area immediately as plates and cups and sauces and all the paraphernalia of breakfast were slung round and round and round by eight hormonally charged teenagers at each other.

Ruby seized several cartons of milk and was tossing them at random,

Weiss wielded squirt bottles to cover everyone with ketchup and syrup,

Blake grabbed a long string of sausages and was using it like a whip.

Yang took up what were probably chicken drumsticks,

Jaune contemplated hiding beneath the table as he held up a plate to shield himself,

Nora grabbed all sorts of fruits to hurl at everyone else,

Pyrrha swung a loaf of baguette to hit everyone with,

Ren was able to get ahold of several vegetables,

They chased each other round and round the courtyard pouring and dosing each other in bread and butter and jam and juice, all the while laughing and smiling at each other as they went at it with all they had in a free for all food fight. Eventually though, someone was going to get tired of it.

And that someone was Ruby.

Having been doused in every single breakfast condiment there was in existence she decided that it was time to finish the fight.

Activating her semblance, she dashed through the courtyard, picking up everything in her wake and generating a tornado, realizing what she was trying to do Jaune immediately wiped the marmalade out of his eyes and ran for his partner.

"C'mon Pyrrha!" Jaune immediately tugged on his partner's hand as Ruby's tornado began to gather strength, "hold on to that bread, take cover and wait for my signal." So saying he flipped a table over to shield the both of them and hid beneath it together with his partner as Ruby's tornado reached its crescendo, picking up the others and sending them hurtling every which way until she stopped causing everything to fall back down and ending with Ruby standing on top a mountain of tables.

"And the winner is…" Ruby dusted her hands off, "Me!" She adopted a 'tah-dah!' pose

"Now Pyrrha!" Jaune shouted, Ruby turned just in time to watch a Pyrrha hurl a baguette right into her face, she was knocked right off the pile of chairs and tables and landed on the floor.

"Yes!" Jaune smirked and high-fived his partner, they were both covered in all sorts of liquids and solids that ran down their uniforms and stained them in all sorts of colors, and yet as they exchanged smiles, they could savor the sweet and salty taste of victory.

It was then that they noticed two others watching them from one end of the courtyard, one was Sun Wukong, and the other was a boy wearing a pie on his head that was dripping down onto the rest of his clothes, staining them white.

"Oh hey Sun!" Jaune waved at the monkey Faunus as the pie fell off of the other boy's head, "What's up?"

"What's up, is what is going on here?" A sharp female voice crackled, and Glynda Goodwitch and Ozpin walked onto the scene of total carnage, with hunters-in-training lying every which way all over the floor of the courtyard and debris strewn everywhere.

Miraculously, the breakfast stall had survived the onslaught.

"Oh…hey Professor." Jaune waved awkwardly as the rest of Teams RWBY and JNPR struggled to get to their feet.

Glynda's eyebrow twitched.

Ozpin stepped forward, "Since none of this is technically Beacon property I suppose none of you can be faulted for any damage, still I suppose what's done is done, you should all be thankful not _everything_ was destroyed in your little…tussle." He gestured to the breakfast stall.

"Aw man, we're totally gonna be _deep_ in the red…" Yang grumbled.

"Perhaps you could consider this a lesson learned in not acting rashly and in caring for your own property Ms. Xiao Long." Ozpin said with a thin smile.

"Uh…well guess we gotta clean up huh?" Jaune scratched his head.

"Yes," Glynda said as she straightened her glasses, "Seeing as it is _not_ Beacon property, the onus is on you eight for taking care of your own belongings." And with that said, Teams RWBY and JNPR began the long task of cleaning up the courtyard.

"Man we totally have to do that again." Ruby smiled brightly as she picked up the milk cartons she had been throwing around.

"Agreed." Jaune grinned.

Sometime later, they managed to pack everything up and put all of the tables and chairs back in order, the broken ones were left for the janitors to pick up. All eight proceeded back to their dorms to wash off the accumulated grease, oil and fruit jam on their bodies. With that done, they found themselves together in Team RWBY's dorm.

"So what do you think we should do now?" Jaune asked and looked around the room.

"Maybe this would be a good time to catch up on revision; it _is_ the last day after all." Weiss noted.

"Only _you_ could come up with a way to make the last day boring like that." Yang rolled her eyes.

"Hey I was just saying!" Weiss shot back.

"Movie night!" Ruby said all of a sudden, "We could have another sleepover together since we've been apart for so long."

There were nods all around.

"Ok, well in that case-" Jaune was about to speak but was cutoff when his scroll beeped, he fished it out of his pocket and looked at it.

"Oh, that's interesting." He noted.

"What is?" Pyrrha asked.

"Apparently I have a package waiting for me at the mail office," Jaune kept his scroll and looked at the others.

"You gals sort it out first, looks like I've got a package to grab." He got up and got out of the dorm.

* * *

 _ **Elsewhere,**_

Professor Bartholomew Oobleck was seated in the teacher's lounge enjoying a cup of coffee and looking over some old photos he had found while clearing out his office, his thoughts were interrupted as Professor Port entered the lounge as well.

"Barty boy!" Port greeted with a wide grin from behind his moustache.

"Good day to you Peter." Oobleck

"What's that you've got there Barty?" Port asked looking over his colleague's shoulder.

"Oh nothing really, just looking through some old memories," Oobleck turned his head to smile at his partner before returning to the picture, "Do you remember this class?" He handed the picture to Port who let out a loud guffaw.

"Of course! Who in this academy would be able to forget the year group that contained Team STRQ and Team CORA!" Port grinned widely from behind his moustache.

"I certainly recognize the predecessors to Teams RWBY and JNPR," Port returned the picture to Oobleck.

At that moment, Glynda and Ozpin chose to enter the teacher's lounge as well.

"They're just children Glynda, let them have their fun." Ozpin said as he went to the coffeemaker to refill his cup.

"Sure thing." Glynda deadpanned as she made her way over to another kettle to boil tea for herself.

"Hey you two, check out what Oobleck found!" Port gestured over to them, the two made their way over as Oobleck held up the picture.

"Oh my, I do believe its Team CORA." Ozpin smiled from behind his coffee cup.

"It is indeed." Glynda deadpanned.

"Do we still remember that one time Qrow put a rubber lizard in Jacques's coffee because he wanted to stick it to 'Mr. straitlaced'?" Oobleck spoke up.

"Yes," Glynda straightened her glasses, "I recall Jacques tore Beacon apart trying to kill Qrow and had to be stopped by the rest of STRQ and CORA."

"Ah, I remember he nearly beat Qrow senseless the next time they had combat class, after that as I recall Qrow never dared prank Jacques again, I think they're pretty good friends now though." Ozpin nodded as he sipped from his coffee cup.

"Well not for nothing was Jacques the peerless swordsman," Glynda sighed, "He and Summer were close weren't they?"

"I believe the two teams relationship was more rivalry based compared to the friendly companionship his son shares with Team RWBY. Both teams certainly enjoyed trying to treat everything as a competition to one-up the other in terms of everything." Ozpin mused with a small smile.

"Ah yes, those days." Port sighed melodramatically as he sat down and a moment of silence passed between them

"…He's really nothing like his sister too is he?" Oobleck noted.

"Or his father for that matter." Ozpin agreed.

"I suppose we all still remember Annie?" Oobleck laughed, Glynda scoffed and straightened her glasses on the bridge of her nose.

"Ha! _That_ troublemaker? Losing her huntress license just the day _after_ she gained it at graduation? I'm just really glad that her younger brother is far more controlled than she _ever was_." Glynda smirked as the old memories came back to her, ah the shouting matches, the insulting, and the sheer obnoxiousness of it all.

Yes, thank goodness _Jaune_ was nothing like that.

"Still, I do wonder what Annie has been up to these days." Oobleck leaned back against the table as he swirled his coffee.

"I heard she was working as a hired gun in Vacuo for some time," Ozpin sipped from his cup before continuing, "After that attack two years ago though, she returned to Armorica and now conducts missions with the Royal Legion in the surrounding area."

"Well at least she's finally putting her talents to good use…" Glynda sighed, Annie had been an incredible handful during her days at Beacon, but none who ever saw her fight like she did ever doubted what she was capable of when things got really serious.

"Indeed," Port gruffed, "I would've hated to see such a talented student of ours go to waste like that just because she got a little uppity for one night."

"A little uppity? She nearly annihilated several apartment blocks!" Glynda stared wide-eyed at her colleague, "She went positively nuts that night!" She shook her head.

"And yet it was such a dramatic battle!" Port urged, "One woman, alone, standing against nearly the entirety of the Vale Police Department…I knew there was a reason she was my favorite student."

"She was _insane_ Port." Glynda insisted.

"And also an _excellent_ huntress in her own right, I personally do not think we give her enough credit for her skills." Port folded his arms and stood her ground.

"That's enough, the both of you." Ozpin spoke in a firm tone, "We're not here to complain about Jaune's family –as eccentric as they may be- , her highness Princess Anna has long since come and gone from these halls, and so I think we should leave all those memories as they are, just memories."

* * *

Jaune had been rather surprised when he had received the package from the mail office, it had come from Armorica of all places, and he could not wait to see what it was that either his uncle or Marina had sent to him, he decided to open the package in the privacy of his own dorm, he would rather not have had any of the others curiously looking over his shoulder as he checked its contents.

And so he entered his dorm and settled down on his own bed.

Jaune hastily opened the package and found a letter together with a rather old-looking book. He opened the letter first and grimaced when he realized who it was from; with a quick skim of its contents he then folded the letter, and tossed it somewhat carelessly to the side before focusing his full attention on the book.

It looked rather thick and really old and brown; it had the same look and feel as so many of the old tomes that he had read way back home. He slowly opened it and looked at the back of the hardcover.

A picture had been taped to the very top of the back of the cover, the picture showed two men and two women standing together with Beacon Academy in the background. From the left to the right:

A rather taller blonde male who was grinning with long, spiky hair, he wore a green coat over a yellow undershirt with brown pants and boots

Next was a shorter, smirking male with cropped dark hair, he was wearing a simple black, long-sleeved shirt and long pants with sneakers.

After that, was girl with long cyan hair, she had a bored expression on her face and wore a loose white tank top over a black sports bra, brown shorts and black tights.

Beside her was redheaded woman equal in height to the blone with a cocky grin and long, wavy locks, she had a flowing red cape and wore what looked like plated armor.

Even though he had only seen them a handful of times in his entire life, in an instant Jaune knew all their names by heart.

Jacques Arc

Nero Obsidian

Pearl Clearwater

Rosso Sanguine

His father's old team.

At the bottom of the picture, some words had been written:

 _To absent friends now, then, and for all time, you will forevermore be in our hearts, watch over us, let your strength be ours, and let us meet again in the hereafter._

 _-Team CORA_

On the opposite page more words had been written.

 _Property of Jacques Arc, trespassing is punishable by a meeting with the sharp end of_ _Durendal_ _._

Jaune rolled his eyes, but his interest had been piqued, he turned a page and began reading the first page.

 _Dear Journal,_

 _What a crazy day this is going to be. Today I took my first step off a bullhead…and into Beacon Academy…_

…

To his great surprise, Jaune found himself rather absorbed in his father's old journal.

* * *

 **Team CORA is pronounced "Coral", and if you squint, Jaune's dad's team also forms JNPR. I actually was going to go for an "old Team JNPR" bent originally, but I scrapped it when I thought it didn't make sense how no one was mentioning it in the earlier chapters.**

 **Couple of other things that didn't make the cut:**

 **Durendal is of course the sword used by Roland, one of Charlemagne's knights, tying in a few more mythological references, was originally going to be called _Schwarz Eisen_ which is German for "Black Iron". I was thinking of making him a reference to the German _Landsknecht_ mercenaries with their use of the large Zweihander swords.**

 **I was thinking of following the original battle as shown in canon, but with the introduction of the breakfast stall I decided to change it into a more free-for-all style fight for fun.**

 **I hope I captured Pyrrha's insecurity with regards to her relationship with Jaune right, its a small part but one of the things I dislike about the arkos ship is how completely different the two are, most people consider Lancaster their Brotp...I actually consider arkos my Brotp.**

 **That's enough for now I guess, have an omake that you all should know by now (and if you don't shame on you, get out there and watch it _now_ )**

* * *

 **Dance-off**

"These are your _huntsmen_? Ha!" Cinder laughed at the fallen Team RNJR scattered around her, " _Pathetic_ , and to think I dared to take you more seriously than I did your silly champion, even she couldn't stop me, what hope did you ever have?" She smirked as she powered up a massive fireball to finish the battle with.

"No…we weren't…weren't strong enough…" Ruby gasped out as Cinder loomed over her.

"Say goodnight silver-eyed warrior." Cinder hissed, "And this time-" She was soundly cutoff.

"Red like roses fills my dreams and brings me to the place you rest," A voice started singing, Cinder turned to find Jaune, his armor scorched and blackened from her attacks, his body cut and bleeding in multiple places and dirt and mud all over his face.

"Just look at me alright?" Jaune said and started dancing while singing rather badly, pulling out all sorts of moves that the rest of the team were not sure existed, "White is cold and always yearning, burdened by a royal test." He continued.

"What are you doing?" Cinder deadpanned as she gave a look of utter confusion.

"Dance-off duh!" Jaune said as he continued his little dance as Ruby staggered to her feet.

"White is cold and always yearning, burdened by a royal test… c'mon Rubes dance with me!" Jaune held out his hand to Ruby.

Ruby shook her head vigorously.

"What. Are. You. DOING?!" Cinder roared.

"I'm distracting you damn bitch." Jaune grinned, a rather loud 'click' sounded and Cinder turned to her side.

Just in time to see Nora fire Magnhild's last shot.

* * *

 **10/10 would use Jaune's dancing skills to distract the villain at the last moment.**

 **And don't you dare tell me you don't want to see this happen.**

 **All your reviews faves and follows are immensely appreciated!**


	19. It's getting hot in here

**Another slightly late chapter, I must be letting myself go these days, Hm.**

 **One of the problems with writing for V2 is that it tends to be a lot more contiguous compared to V1, there are noticeably far fewer timeskips with probably even less time between each timeskip, from the start of Team RWBY's investigation, to the dance and then finally to the Mt. Glenn mission and then the breach is an almost singular timeline.**

 **I think I can make do though**

 **Please Enjoy!**

* * *

Ozpin's eyes bugged out of his face as he read through the budget for the upcoming month, thanks in no small part to the needs of the newly arriving students from the other three kingdoms of Remnant, spending had increased sharply in order to provide for the needs of several dozen more hunters-in-training

The amount of money he was getting on the other hand, most certainly had not increased.

Thankfully, the Royal Family had not seen fit to decrease the dues that they paid to the academy; on the other hand the thought of trying to convince them to potentially _increase_ their dues seemed almost…well far-fetched was a rather nice way of putting it. They had already increased their dues at one point as a way of 'compensating' for having to take the prince in; convincing them to increase them again with no real benefit to them seemed like a rather selfish way of taking advantage of the prince.

Something something 'provide for additional security and bribes to keep the prince's identity a secret'? Hm…

 _Nope,_ Ozpin shook his head; the Crown Prince was not nearly that stupid as to fall for a trick like that.

Ozpin continued brooding over the report in silence, with a great sigh he got out of his chair and headed to the kettle to refill his cup with more coffee, it seemed to be the only small piece of comfort that he could attain these days with all the crap that he kept getting from pretty much everyone. Unfortunately, when he tried to pour it out, he was dismayed to find that he had run out, necessitating that he wait while he boiled more water and got more coffee beans.

As he waited for the water to boil, his desk started ringing, momentarily startled; he walked over to it and looked at the identity of the caller.

Crown Prince Edward

 _Now what could this be about?_ Ozpin wondered as he pressed the button to accept the call, in a moment the Crown Prince himself appeared on the screen.

"Good morning your highness, is anything the matter?" Ozpin greeted with a smile.

"Yes Ozpin," The Crown Prince smirked, "There _is_ a matter that I wish to consult you about."

"Oh?" Ozpin raised his eyebrows, "And what would that be?"

"It's just a minor issue, it shouldn't take too much of your time," Edward replied, "I was wondering if you knew anything about a certain fleet of airships that just _might_ be due in Vale…" He took a moment to glance at his watch, " _Sometime next week_." He returned to the screen.

Of course he knew about it, Ozpin was very aware of the fact that the Headmaster of Atlas Academy himself was coming down to Vale for the Vytal Festival, and he was also bringing along with him a rather large fleet of airships from the Atlesian Military. A very sizable portion of them in point of fact, along with the associated military paraphernalia of heavily armed soldiers and robotic machinery.

"Well," Ozpin started slowly, "I _am_ acquainted with the head of Atlas Academy."

"…You didn't answer the question Ozpin."

"Yes I was," Ozpin sighed, "Though not until recently, the council agreed to let them in as a gesture of support for the Vytal Festival and to provide additional security against…any…potential…threats." Ozpin explained.

"So the council doubts your ability to handle the Festival arrangement?" Edward scoffed, "Ah to think I would hear of a day when the great headmaster of Beacon himself would be doubted by others." He folded his arms and adopted a smug expression.

Ozpin cracked a thin smile, he had often dealt with Edward's own brand of sarcastic wittery, but he knew that the Prince rarely meant it in a deliberately offensive manner; it was just in his nature to occasionally goad others for the heck of it. The Headmaster of Beacon Academy sometimes wondered if it was some form of compensation for the lack of any _real_ authority that the Royal Family held in Vale ever since their fall and dismissal from Vale city decades ago.

"And you weren't aware of this?" Ozpin said as he looked at Crown Prince Edward on the holo-screen.

"You think the council appreciates us enough to keep us in the loop?" Edward snorted, "You think a little too highly of us Ozpin."

"No of course not your highness," Ozpin held a hollow smile on his face, "I wouldn't dream of it."

"Regardless of all that business, I suppose Jean is doing well? I do believe I have yet to _personally_ evaluate his unofficial protection squad." Edward remarked.

"Yes, his highness is quite apt in his studies and leads his team fairly effectively; he bonds well with other students as well. As to the matter of his protection, would you like to see them anytime soon? You know well that as students they have their own studies to attend to, I shall have to set up an appointment at some future date."

"Hm, we shall see about that, how did the leak of Jean's identity go?"

"It would appear that the leak did not spread as far as we thought, in fact it is entirely possible that it has been kept to its original listeners, and that could make it a rather foreboding portent of things to come."

"How so?"

"Forgive me for any insolence in my words, but it is entirely possible that whoever it is, they are keeping it a secret in order to 'save his highness' for themselves, so to speak, do their best not to let anyone else know so that their own plans may continue forward without any possible outside interference." Ozpin explained.

"…now that _is_ an alarming threat." Edward stroked his chin and considered his options, with his niece's protector Gravelyn now in Vale that meant his only nephew could count on at least one reliable person for help, and three of unknown quality. At least two had been vetted by Gravelyn and he had given his word on their effectiveness in skill, so that meant at least three people with an unknown fourth person.

Good enough given the circumstances.

Edward of course, would have loved to be able to claim that they had finally secured themselves against the White Fang and that the Headmaster could now send the wayward prince back to his homeland, the original rationale behind sending him to Beacon was that it had been the safest place to be without going too far away, the White Fang were not known for operating in great strength in Vale, plus there was the fact that a Hunter Academy headmaster and the faculty could help out if anything went wrong, not counting still additional support from the numerous hunters-in-training.

And it had appeared to be working, for a few months at least until some unknown girl from Atlas had spoken his name aloud in the middle of a fight between a criminal known as Roman Torchwick who was apparently working with the White Fang, and that was the part that had him worried the most.

Did the White Fang already know about Jean's appearance in Vale? And if so, were they planning something involving him? And if they were planning something, what was it? Were they going to try to kidnap him and demand a ransom or some kind of political reparation as the price? Or were they just going to execute him publicly to make him some sort of example of the power that they wielded.

 _No._ The thought burned in Edward's mind, the White Fang could not be allowed any more of their transgressions, the House of Vale would not stand for the death of another one of its family, especially not the only prince of Armorica.

"What are you doing about the White Fang and its suppose cooperation with this… _Roman Torchwick_." Edward kept his voice level, it would not do to act out any grievances on the Headmaster of Beacon Academy, he could hardly be faulted for the events so far.

"I have yet to see any movement on their part; reports indicate that Roman Torchwick continues to ply his trade by stealing and looting dust shops, other than that though there has been little movement on his part. As for the White Fang besides the incident at the docks there has been so far nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing, not a peep or squeak, they've gone to ground and have been hiding out, they might be planning something but for now, we know little." Ozpin replied.

Silence passed between them as Edward stroked his chin.

"Fair enough then, I suppose it would be a little presumptuous of me to assume that even you can know everything that is going on at this point of time." He leaned back and relaxed his shoulders.

"If I may be so bold as to ask, has there been any news as to the whereabouts of the Duke and the Duchess?" Ozpin inquired carefully.

Edward's eyes narrowed and his lip quivered for the barest of a moment, and for that same moment Ozpin wondered briefly if he had overstepped himself and was now about to take a 10% cut to the funding that the Royal Family provided Beacon with. It was a strange relationship that the academy had with the Royal Family, in return for being able to draw on the Royal Enclaves resources, the Royal Family was able to place "requests" for help in dealing with Grimm problems, these "requests" being the placing of missions related to the Royal Enclaves at the top of the priority list with additional monetary rewards being given for their successful accomplishment.

Frequently accompanied by a letter:

 _His and Her Majesty the King and Queen of Vale would like to extend a gesture of personal thanks and a deep sense of gratitude to insert random hunter name here for their assistance in ensuring the continued safety of the citizens of the Royal Enclaves._

A little bonus for the men and women who had done their work.

It was obviously the sort of standardized message that had a template somewhere where a few variables had to be inserted before being printed out; still it was surprisingly motivational given the average Valean's loyalty to either the Crown or to the Council.

Side effects of course, included the knocking down of other, potentially just –or even more- urgent missions down the priority list, it was an inevitable trade-off, if the Royal Enclaves took priority than obviously _someone_ or _something_ was going to have to pay for that diversion of attention.

Ozpin sipped his coffee and gave it an inquisitive look.

Well at least he could keep his coffee; he would probably have to draw down on other…less essential items…

Hm…

Did the students really need air-conditioning in their dorms, they had windows right? Besides even if it was the summer season, the students would surely be able to find their own ways to cool off in the heat.

…

Right?

 _Well at least Ms. Schnee should be able to, she could probably just buy out the Vale's entire stock of ice dust for herself._ Ozpin thought.

He was jolted out of his thoughts when the Crown Prince began speaking again.

"No, Jacques and Viola are still missing; at this point they could very well be dead for all we know." Edward sighed, "At least Marina was able to pick up on their slack of governing the city, the breach happened under her watch, but her response to it was fast and most effective, I do believe that even if she herself does not hold the title, the king and the queen may very well decide that she is worth it given all that she has had to do at her age." Edward looked thoughtful.

Now that was something, the title was normally hereditary anyway, but usually it was passed down in a pompous ceremony from one Duke or Duchess to the next. It would be a strange thing for the Royal Family to declare both of them to be dead just so the title could be passed down to the next person given the rather traditionalist roots of the Royal Enclaves.

"She has done a very good job in her parent's absence hasn't she?" Ozpin cringed a little when he had said that, he had not yet had the opportunity to meet the so and so called "Iron Bitch" of Armorica.

He had long ago guessed from the nickname that she was not someone a person would normally be keen on meeting.

"As good as can be done given her complete lack of experience when she started out." Edward nodded, "It's a shame that we had to be saddled with two such irresponsible people, if only we still had Altira or Frederick around…" He mused quietly, though it did not go unheard by Ozpin.

Ozpin had only the vaguest of knowledge as to who Altira and Frederick were, the elder brother and sister of Jacques. Frederick had been slated to inherit the title, but had been killed in battle during a skirmish with Grimm on the frontline, Legion Company Commander Altira the knightess had been next, but died under mysterious circumstances shortly before Jacques' graduation from Beacon. They had both been buried with much pomp and ceremony, leaving Jacques, the youngest of the three to inherit the title.

From what little he knew of Jacques, he was generally considered an outcast and a rebel in the Royal Family, lacking the same level of respect for duty that his family in general had, and came to Beacon of his own volition, probably seeking to escape them. It had probably been much the same for Viola, who was the more flighty and cheerful and probably hated the stifling environment.

Small wonder they had run off as soon as it seemed his children could take over from him.

"Well if that is all I suppose I should leave you to it, good day to you Ozpin." Edward nodded.

"Good day to you to your highness." Ozipn returned the nod just before the Prince disconnected.

 _Hm, and now to other matters._ The thought of the budget had been weighing on his mind all throughout the conversation with the Crown Prince, and now the headmaster was sure of the direction he should take in order to try and balance the budget.

 _Yes, I think this should do quite nicely._ Turn off the air-conditioning for a period of one week and see how much money they saved, and if it turned out to be an effective way of cutting costs, they could probably do it again in the future.

 _Well, here goes._ He smiled to himself as he reached for the button to make an academy wide announcement.

* * *

 _ **Somewhere in Vale,**_

"So I was all like hah! Hwacha! Hiyah! And then Roman was all like, ugh, ooh, unnhh." Ruby acted out her fight scene by waving her arms around wildly and kicking her legs to and fro and doing her best imitation of a certain Valean criminal as she and Jaune walked down a street through the heart of Vale.

Jaune chuckled as he watched Ruby go about her antics with amusement.

She was retelling how she had first encountered the Valean criminal and how that had allowed her to get an audience with Professors Goodwitch and Ozpin, and how that in turn had enabled her to get into Beacon at the request of the latter.

"And that was how I got into Beacon." Ruby nodded with a big smile on her face.

"Wow, seems like Ozpin was quite impressed with what you did." Jaune returned the smile.

"Yep." Ruby popped the 'p' at the end, "He certainly was, gosh I really need to thank him again for this opportunity."

Jaune grinned, it seemed like Ruby was finally reaching a sense of normality around him, previously she had actually withdrawn a little when it had come to matters about him and she did her best to always be on her best behavior, one side effect was that Weiss was quite thankful for it and had actually complimented Ruby at one point on trying to act more mature a less childish.

On the other hand, Jaune sincerely felt that Ruby's childishness was quite charming in its own right. Occasionally though, there were still a few hiccups.

You see earlier that day, Ruby had nervously asked him for some help in carrying some ammo she had ordered from a munitions factory in Vale to Beacon. She had been rather apprehensive at first about it, asking a prince to do menial labor? Who'd have ever thought of such a thing? The poor girl looked like she was about to get her head chopped off at the guillotine when she had asked Jaune about it.

"Hey Jaune?" Ruby asked timidly and fidgeted with her feet and fingers as she approached him in the library where he was pouring over his father's old journal.

"Yeah?" Jaune looked up to face her.

"I…err…I kinda need some help with something."

"Ok? What do you need help with?"

"Well if it's not too much trouble for you…erm…" She fidgeted a bit more before suddenly raising her hands in front of her, "You know what? Forget it, you…probably have better things to do, _yup_ I'll just ask someone else." She grinned awkwardly and turned to leave, Jaune immediately reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Ruby," He said sternly, "If its help you need I'm always here for you, so what is it?" He asked.

"Eh well, I don't want to impose on you…" She trailed off and fidgeted with her feet.

"You're not imposing on anyone, so what do you need help with?"

"Well it's just…" She scrunched up her face, "You're a _prince_ and like…I don't know if I should be asking you for help with this."

Jaune sighed, "Ruby I'm not a prince here alright? You can ask me for anything." He said reassuringly.

"Ok…erm…well…I need a hand carrying some ammo I ordered from Vale?"

"You ordered ammo? Don't you have the Beacon Forge for that?"

Ruby lifted an eyebrow and made a face that said _Really Jaune? Really?_

"…Oh right…you know you still haven't told me what you did-"

" _Anyway_ ," Ruby quickly interrupted him, "I ordered quite a lot and I need some help carrying it back, Weiss is busy working on that project and Blake is doing her own thing and Yang is off… _somewhere_ so…"

"So it's just me." Jaune concluded.

"Yeah…"

"How much did you order anyway? It shouldn't be a problem should it?"

"Err…five…"

"Five? That's…barely a magazine, unless you-"

"Thousand…"

"…Oh…"

And so now they were trudging down a street in Vale.

"So where is this shop exactly?"

"Not much further," Ruby waved her hand down the street, "I'm a regular customer there so it shouldn't be a problem."

"Alright." Jaune nodded.

"Hey Mikey!" Ruby called out as she opened the door of _Mikhail's Weapons and other Essential items_.

"Ruby! My favorite customer!" A voice called out from behind the counter and Jaune found himself looking at a _very_ tall and well-built man. In fact saying that he was just, _tall_ and _well-built_ was a bit of an understatement because the man was built like some kind of powerlifter, and Jaune immediately decided he did not want to get on that man's bad side.

"You got that order I made?" Ruby made a devious smile as she approached the counter.

"Sure thing! Just give me a moment!" He went in for a moment and came back out…

Hauling five rather large bags, you could hear the bullets clinking and grinding against each other as he carried them.

"Here you go." He said as he dropped them with a rather unceremoniously loud *CLANK* on the floor.

Jaune gaped at the bags, and then looked at Ruby, and then looked at the bags.

He sighed

Not too long later, both were dragging the bags back to platform from where bullheads took off to go to Beacon, Jaune was carrying three of them while Ruby carried two. Along the way, they became rather tired from carrying and took a moment to stop at a nearby bench to take a break.

"Man Rubes," Jaune was breathing hard, " _how much_ ammunition do you need anyway?"

"Ah hehe," Ruby smiled awkwardly, "Maybe it would've been better if you had stayed back at Beacon…"

"No no this much is fine," Jaune returned the smile, "It's the least I can do for a friend." They both fell into silence as they caught their breath.

"Never thought I'd see the day when his highness would be performing manual labor." A voice cracked out from the side, both jumped and turned to look at the voice.

Gravelyn had draped himself across the bench beside them, in his hands was a newspaper that he was reading rather diligently.

 _When did he…?_ Jaune thought but shook himself; it was not within him to question what the protector did.

Ruby on the other hand was immediately on guard on hearing the newcomer refer to her friend by his title, her mind thought back to events of the night at the docks when Penny had inadvertently revealed Jaune's identity as her hand grasped Crescent Rose on her belt tightly and she eyed the man suspiciously, if he was another baddie like Roman Torchwick looking for trouble she would definitely defend Jaune with everything she had if necessary. At a blink she would be ready to stake her life for Jaune.

No one would be getting past _this_ reaper.

To her surprise though, Jaune seemed to notice her apprehension and held her wrist and shook his head gently as if to say, _its ok,_ Ruby lifted an eyebrow and slowly let go of her scythe.

"Well she's as fast as the cat and monkey at least." Gravelyn laughed as he folded his newspaper down.

"Jaune…you know him?"

"This is Gravelyn Wells, he's my _official_ bodyguard the same way you, Blake and Sun are my _unofficial_ bodyguards." Jaune nodded, at this Ruby finally relaxed.

"Aw man, I nearly drew my baby on you." Ruby pouted childishly.

"So what are you doing your highness? Dragging large bags of ammunition around Vale? Someone could get hurt you know?" Gravelyn smirked widely.

"Just helping out my other bodyguard here," He nodded to Ruby.

"Oh that's a real shame, I wonder what would happen if someone were to find out that one your own bodyguards was making you do work…" He sighed and looked away, Ruby instantly froze.

"Err Jaune…?" She squeaked out meekly.

"Relax, he's just teasing you." Jaune patted her on the back.

"You should really get less uptight bodyguards your highness, would make it easier on yourself." Gravelyn rolled his eyes as he got off the bench and stood up, "Well farewell for now, I was just checking up on the new arrival."

"You're not gonna try and duel her like you did with Blake?"

"Nah, I have confidence in your highness' choice, you already picked out two fairly decent ones, and so it stands to reason that you should have no problem with the third."

 _Well it's just because they happened to be there, but I guess that works too._ Jaune thought.

"Well see you around your highness." Gravelyn bowed and then walked away with newspaper in hand, rapidly disappearing into the crowd.

"Well…that was something." Jaun scratched his head.

"Who is he exactly?" Ruby asked nervously.

"He's a Royal Protector, a person charged with the protection of the Royal Family, which of course includes me. Just relax, Gravelyn's a bit of joker when it comes to these things, I don't think he'll do anything of that sort." Jaune shrugged.

"Ok…if you say so…" Ruby trailed off, although she still looked rather nervous from the way she seemed to be trembling a little.

" _Relax_ Rubes," Jaune put an arm across her back, "Even if he did I'd vouch for you, nothing's going to happen ok?"

"Alright…" Ruby sighed and looked up at the sky, "Shall we get going?"

"Let's." Jaune nodded.

When they finally got to Beacon, Jaune was too tired from lugging around the bags of ammo that he did not even feel the need to throw up on the flight. He had not taken any airsickness pills in any case, when they finally stepped into Beacon the first thing they noticed was how inexplicably warm it was.

Like _really_ warm.

And humid too, so much so that both started sweating almost immediately.

"Did someone turn off the air-conditioning or something?" Ruby asked as she wiped off some sweat on her forehead.

"I hope not, we're all going to bake ourselves in this summer heat if this keeps up." Jaune nodded as he wiped his chin off, after depositing Ruby's ammo off at her locker, they headed back to the dorms, where quite a sight greeted them.

 _All_ the student dorms doors were thrown wide open with the windows opened just as wide, Beacon students littered the entire area in various stages of undress and melancholy, all were desperately trying to cool themselves off with cold water in bottles, some had taken to taking up residence in the bathrooms and pouring water over themselves. Ruby covered her eyes as she passed by several male students in nothing but their underwear while Jaune nervously prevented himself from staring at some of the other female students some of whom were wearing very little.

Soon they reached their dorms.

In Team RWBY's dorm, Yang was lying on her back spread-eagled on the floor, occasionally going for a water bottle to drink and pour some over the top of her head. Weiss was sitting in one corner, fanning herself with one hand while the other hand gripped a large shard of ice dust tightly. Meanwhile, Blake was curled up under the window with a smile on her face, absorbing the sunlight and heat.

In Team JNPR's dorm, Pyrrha was at her desk studying…or rather _trying_ to study in-between wiping the sweat from her face with a towel and tugging at her collar. Ren was splayed out on top of his bed, clearly out cold. Even Nora, normally the hyperactive one was sitting stock still at one side. With both Teams doors and windows thrown open, a momentary breeze wafted in.

 _Everyone_ let out a small sigh of pleasure.

"What's going on?" Jaune stood in the hallway and looked between both dorms.

"Air-conditioning…is…out…" Yang gasped out quietly.

"Let me guess," Jaune rolled his eyes, "Weiss turned the air-conditioning down to sub-zero _again_ , broke it _again_ , and now we have to wait for the maintenance crew to arrive from Vale. _Good work_ Ice Queen." Jaune clapped sarcastically at the last part, Weiss looked especially peeved when he said that.

* * *

 _ **Flashback, before summer break,**_

"I got nothing leader." Nora said as she waved her hands in front of the ACU.

"Maybe it's out of batteries?" Pyrrha said as she tapped the remote against her hand.

"Can't be, the remote works fine," Jaune noted as he pressed the power button, the display flickered to life.

"Must be a power cut then." Ren sighed.

"Why though? We've never had a power cut before." Jaune stretched out one hand and tapped the ACU, expecting something to happen.

Nothing did.

"We should check with Team RWBY and see if they have a similar problem." Pyrrha opened the door and walked over to Team RWBY's dorm and knocked on it with Jaune following behind.

"Who is it?" Yang's voice came out,

"It's Pyrrha, could we come in for a moment?"

"Door's unlocked." Yang answered, Pyrrha opened the door…

And instantly a chill ran up both her's and Jaune's spine.

"Why is it so cold in here?" Jaune shivered as he stepped into the dorm, noticing everyone was curled up in blankets except for Weiss.

"Well never mind that," Weiss said dismissively, "What's more problematic is that's getting warmer and we can't stop it because the air-conditioning broke apparently." Jaune gave a look at the remote on the wall, and his eyes bugged out.

" _Thirteen_?!" He nearly shouted, "How the heck did you make it go to _thirteen_ when eighteen is the limit?!"

* * *

"Hey it wasn't my fault summer in Vale is so hot! It's a veritable inferno out there!" Weiss insisted as she tugged at the collar of her uniform, "Besides I've been using ice dust to supplement the temperature control, I haven't been putting the AC down to below eighteen I _swear_!" She protested.

 _Guess it's true what they say about cats being solar-powered._ Jaune mused to himself as he looked at Blake, who looked quite comfortable in the sun.

 _Hmm, is it racist if we transcribe animal traits to their Faunus equivalents?_ Jaune briefly wondered to himself before shaking his head free of those thoughts.

"So…what's going on then?" Jaune asked.

"The headmaster made a public announcement," Pyrrha turned around in her chair, "He said that thanks to a lack of funding from the council, he was going to turn off the air-conditioning for the next week in order to try to save money."

"He also said we should blame the council for the lack of funding and that 'it couldn't be helped'." Nora nodded along.

Jaune sighed, it was going to be a hellish week.

 _ **D-Day +1,**_

Professor Port's classes were boring enough for the average hunter-in-training in Beacon, the Professor loved to drone on and on about his glory days, besides that he would occasionally inject practical lessons by making chosen students fight a Grimm beast that he had –undoubtedly- captured with his bare hands the previous day before. Now not only did the students have to listen to his endless stories.

They now had to deal with the stifling heat.

Most rarely tried to pay attention and were apt to fall asleep, this time not even those who usually paid attention were trying.

Weiss's head was on the desk.

Pyrrha's body swayed left and right unsteadily as she tried to maintain concentration as her eyelids grew heavier and heavier with every passing moment.

Jaune barely managed to pass the time by continuing his read-through of his father's old journal, but even he had problems after a while. He took a moment to look around the class at everyone else, pretty much the entire class had drifted off, the only person still somewhat present was his partner beside him, but she looked ready to knockoff at any moment.

Jaune turned back to his father's journal, and realized that he had actually been turning pages without actually reading what was on them.

 _ **D-Day +2,**_

"FUCK!" A loud curse came out of the shower in Team RWBY's dorm, immediately the entire team was at the door.

"Yang?! What happened? Talk to me!" Ruby shouted worriedly as the door opened and Yang stepped out grumbling more curses and swear words.

"Yang?" Blake lifted an eyebrow.

"I'm fine I'm fine!" She waved it away, "It's just that the few times that I wish the water was cold its somehow hot as all hell!" She growled and gnashed her teeth.

"What are you talking about?" Weiss raised an eyebrow, "The water should be-OW!" She screeched and took her hand away from the water coming out of the shower head.

"See what I mean?" Yang shook her head.

 _ **D-Day +3,**_

"Dammit!" Weiss swore rather loudly as she ruffled through her bag for something.

"What's happened to you now?" Yang asked as she took a long swig of cold water from her bottle.

"I think I ran out of ice dust!" Weiss growled as she emptied her bag.

" _Oh really_ Weiss?" Yang rolled her eyes, "Really?"

"Yes really," Weiss turned and narrowed her eyes, "Now how am I going to cool off like this?!"

"I told you to ease up on your usage before you ran out." Yang chided.

"I don't think you understand just what this heat is doing to me Yang!"

"Gosh I hope I don't ever," Yang grit her teeth, the heat was making her own sometimes volatile temper flare even harder, "I might end up like you."

 _ **D-Day +4,**_

"Pyrrha." Jaune said sternly as he looked at her intensely.

"Y-yes J-Jaune?" Pyrrha squeaked out as he loomed over her, still tightly grasping her wrists with his hands. Her heart was going off like jackhammer against her chest, her face was flushed a bright red and the blood rush combined with the heat and her own desires was starting to make her head spin.

"I've had enough of this." He said, his voice dropping several in pitch as he leaned forward until his face was just inches away from Pyrrha's own,

Said girl's breath caught in her throat as she stumbled over her words.

"W-what's wrong Jaune?" She tried to say as calmly as possible even as his breath tickled her nose.

"You're teasing me aren't you?" He hissed out in a low tone that made her shiver with excitement, "Trying to get me all aroused hmm? Did you think I would remain oblivious to your…obvious affections."

"I…I guess not…?" Pyrrha tried slowly.

"I'm going to boop you so hard, your hips fall off and you won't be able to walk straight for a whole week, so hard that you're going to have to take a week off from any physical activities just so you can recover, so hard…" He leaned down to whisper in her ear, her breath hitched in her throat again, "You're going to have to take nine months of maternity leave before I'm done with you."

"Oh god yes!" Pyrrha practically screamed, "Take me Jaune!"

"Pyrrha!"

"Huh?", Pyrrha's eyes shot open and she found herself looking at Jaune, still looming over her, but now with a worried expression on his face.

"Are you alright? You were moaning in your sleep." He asked with a frown on his face.

"Err…erm…uh…" Pyrrha's mouth opened and closed as empty sounds came out of her throat. Jaune sat back to give her space as she rose and sat up straight, rubbing her eyes sleepily, it was still unbearably hot as she tugged at her collar.

 _ **D-Day +5,**_

A series of hard knocks sounded on the door to Team JNPR's door, Jaune sighed and got off the floor as the rest of Team JNPR turned to see who it was, Jaune warily opened the door, anticipating Team RWBY.

He got Team CRDL instead.

"What do you want Cardin?" Jaune narrowed his eyes as the rest of Team JNPR got ready for a potential confrontation.

"We were wondering if you'd like to join our rain dance plan." Cardin said simply.

"Excuse me?" Jaune raised an eyebrow, "Did you just say rain dance plan?"

"Yeah, we were going to try and see if there was a way to appease the rain gods, either by sacrifice or by dancing, we've already gotten a bunch of other people to try, so we just decided to invite you." Sky said.

"Either that or we were planning on going to the rooftop to try to hack the ACUs or something." Dove added.

Jaune stared at them with the emptiest expression he could manage.

And then he slammed the door.

 _ **D-Day +7,**_

 _Morale is low as water supplies are beginning to run dry, the heat is beyond stifling, it's like a damn sauna in here and it doesn't help that the air is way too still at times. We are all sweating like a bunch of damn pigs. The entire goddamn dorm smells like a garbage dump now, we all taking showers at a rate of something like once an hour and this of course is not contributing to the water supply situation at all._

 _Somethings needs to happen soon, someone…anyone please save us from this rotten hellhole of sweaty and smelly teenagers –of which I am afraid to say I am one of-, the pain is too much to bear now. Having to wake up in a puddle of your own sweat, being unable to sleep from the sheer discomfort of it all, and of course having to find out that the staff lounge is still fully air-conditioned in the meantime!_

…

 _I think I might try to start a riot soon if something doesn't change._

 _Hmm…_

 _I wonder if I could get the support of the Vale public by making some kind of weirdly cliché 'new era' speech thing about how the students refused to be oppressed by the basest whims of their tyrannical Headmaster._

…

 _Well none of that matters now, by the time you read this, my overheated and desiccated corpse will probably be lying around adding to the stink._

 _If only we could have a sign, a sign of anything that would promise some kind of salvation…_

Jaune's thoughts were interrupted by some strange yelling in the background.

 _Hmm,_ Jaune tapped his pen idly against his forehead as he tried to come up with yet more words to say in his apocalyptic last letter addressed to "Whomever shall find it", something to be found in the event everyone simply went mad and lost their marbles in the heat and ended up killing each other or something.

As the weird yelling continued, Jaune briefly contemplated the morale ramifications of genocide.

 _ **D-Day +7, 23:59**_

Team JNPR and Team RWBY's eyes were glued to the wall clocks mounted on top of their doors; all of them were holding their breaths in anticipation as the clock counted down the final minute towards what they hoped would be freedom from this oppressive heat.

As the clock wound down to time, their hearts began beating rapidly, going off hard in their chests, hard swallows as beads of sweat ran down their foreheads and onto their clothes.

Zero Hour.

...

Nothing.

Eyes twitched all around the room, but before anything else...

"AAAAAHHHHHH!" Out of the blue, a rather loud scream was heard that shattered the eerie silence; the team looked at each other rather fearfully before they bolted from their dorm. The scream had come from right across the hallway where Team RWBY, without waiting for a reply, Jaune barged open the door to find a horrible mess.

Ruby cowering beneath her sheets.

Weiss yelling incoherently at the ACU.

Yang stomping on the remote, which now lay in pieces on the floor.

Blake was curled up in a ball in one corner.

* * *

 _ **Elsewhere,**_

"Oh dear," Ozpin remarked to no one in particular as he looked over a report detailing that further work would be required before ACU unit no. 42 could continue operation.

"Oh well, bad luck to whoever that unit serves." He noted as he took a sip from his mug.

* * *

 **Poor, poor Team RWBY and JNPR, that's what you get for trying to turn the temperature down to "Arctic Tundra" Weiss.**

 **We don't ever talk about what happened on _D-Day +6_ alright? The six day of that week-long nightmare _never_ happened and anyone who so much as implies otherwise is liable to be tried for crimes against Beacon and summarily executed without trial.**

 **One thing I wanted to do with this chapter was to show a little bit of the relationship between Ozpin and the Crown Prince, as well as try to establish the larger relationship between the Academy and the Royal Enclaves on a whole. Obviously, thanks to getting dibs on the priority list the enclaves occasionally shove off other...possibly more dire needs than their own, a little sacrifice that has to be made you can suppose.**

 **I also wanted to show Ruby meeting Gravelyn for the first time and showing that he can creep some people out.**

 **I probably could've written Jaune's letter a little better though, oh well.**

 **Now on to the omake, I know _X-men Apocalypse_ has already been out for some time but only recently have I found the time to go and watch it, but before I do, I want to celebrate a certain scene from _Days of Future Past._**

* * *

 **Quicksilver Ruby**

Pyrrha, Jaune, Ruby and Qrow stumbled out of the elevator leading down into the prison where Pyrrha had been held after her defeat by Cinder at the Battle of Beacon. Unfortunately a welcoming party of cultists was waiting right outside the elevator, armed to teeth and ready to wipe out the team of hunters.

Anger flashed across Pyrrha's eyes, she was tired of that dank, damp and dirty dungeon she had been held in for the past year and was really in no mood to talk.

The walls started shaking as the metal rebar in them started pulling themselves apart.

 _No mercy,_ she thought.

"Pyrrha, NO!" Jaune immediately tried to pull his partner back as rose petals started to flutter about them.

From Ruby's perspective, time seemed to slow to a crawl as she donned her goggles and headphones, remembering to switch the music to _Time in a Bottle – Jim Croce_ right before she took off running with her semblance powered up at full.

 _If I could save time in a bottle…_ Ruby sang along in her head as she raced over to the first cultist and swiftly kicked one of their shins in.

 _The first thing I'd like to do…_ She ran to the next one and pulled his leg out from under him.

 _Is to save every day, 'til eternity passes away…_ She slammed her foot down right on another's boots.

 _If I could make days last forever…_ A kick right in the gentlemen's area

 _If words could make wishes come true…_ Hood pulled over the head

 _I'd save every day like a treasure and then…_ Forehead flick

 _Again, I would spend them with you…_ Another kick up the butt

 _But there never seems to be enough time…_ Knock the gun right into their face

 _To do the things you want to do…_ Straight punch to the gut

 _Once you find them…_ Atomic-wedgie

 _I've looked around enough to know…_ Dope slap

 _That you're the one I want to go…_ Frontal slap

 _Through time with…_ nose flick

Ruby stepped back to admire her handiwork for a moment, and then her eyes widened as she realized she had one more thing left to do.

 _Oops, better not forget._ Ruby noted to herself as she sped over right in front of the trio, she quickly began reordering the bullets, an idea popped itself into her head, and she cheekily began reordering them as best as she could to form a series of letters.

With that done, she finally powered down her semblance.

Cultists immediately went flying every which way possible, getting thrown against the wall, flying up into the air, crashing into each other, and then all collapsing onto the floor unconscious.

At the same time, the bullets slammed into the opposing wall, forming the words, RBY WS HR

And finally a whole shower of Rose Petals floated down out of the air onto the floor below.

Jaune and Pyrrha could only give a gobsmacked expression on their faces as Qrow walked up to Ruby.

"Awesome work kiddo," Qrow smirked and patted Ruby on the head.

* * *

 **Obviously, everything has been altered to make it more Ruby-like, more childish-ish.**

 **I'm thinking of making this a short series, maybe I might do Magneto Nikos or Multiple Sun next chapter if I can think up a scene for either.**

 **Please do leave a fave, follow or review!**


	20. Movement all around

**Is anyone else having a problem with how the website is acting? Because I wasn't able to upload this chapter directly because error message and somehow the file was not in msword, I worked around it by copying it onto an older chapter document thankfully. Allowing me to post this update on time.**

 **Do enjoy!**

* * *

"I don't understand what seems to be the problem here." Marina said flatly as she folded her arms and leaned back in her armchair. She was seated in her office, sipping warm tea gently as she regarded the council's face on the holo-screen in front of her.

"I can't tell if you're not listening to me or if you're just being willfully ignorant of the issue," Councilman Kieran cocked his head to the side as he faced the Armorican governess from his side of the holo-screen. Once again the governess was being a rather difficult person to get along with, he would much rather have dealt with either the king or the queen directly, but they preferred to work through their favorite granddaughter and so he had to work with her.

He narrowed his eyes and began to slowly repeat himself.

"We are formally requesting a grant from the royal family to help fund the upcoming Vytal Festival." He said, "With this, the royal family could make a show of demonstrating their support for the Vytal Festival."

" _Surely_ you jest?" Marina scoffed as she swirled the tea in her cup slowly, "I'm sure you realize we can't simply be giving money all willy nilly to whoever needs it, I mean it's not like we need any help securing our own borders anyway." Every word dripped sarcasm as she looked at her teacup and ignored Kieran for a while, "I might consider it if you're willing to give me some kind of concession of this little grant of ours."

"Don't you forget your place governess-"

"I'll remember my place when you remember yours councilor," Marina growled, "As per the agreement set out by my ancestor _nearly_ half a century before, the royal enclaves will remain an autonomous region governed directly under the auspices of the Royal Family and with an agreement by the council of nobles to respect the sovereign right of the royal family to create and implement their own laws with regards to their territory and domestic affairs." Marina allowed her lip to curl upwards ever so slightly.

It was one of the first things every child in the royal enclaves learnt the moment they could go to school, that the royal enclaves –although beholden sometimes to the whims of the council- was an autonomous entity that capable of making its own decisions and actions to its own benefit without requiring constant oversight from the council. One thing this did was to instil a sense of pride and belonging to its citizens, making them all the more willing to fight for themselves and the four enclaves.

Another thing it did was to stoke a sense of distrust and wariness to the council.

On the governess part though, she simply enjoyed being given the chance to occasionally regurgitate some of the things she had learned while growing up right into the face of the council just to watch them get upset about it, watching them grit their teeth and visibly clench while she basically thumbed her nose and rubbed it in their faces was one of the most entertaining things she could do on a given day.

"Governor Marina Arc," Kieran said with a dark frown on his face, "This is no time for silly games, the people will be looking to us to ensure a smooth running of the Festival, and so we can't afford petty differences to divide us now."

"That would be _your people_ councilor," Marina replied, "Mine don't give a lick of a care for the Festival."

"I'd have thought the Arcs would be a more hospitable and honorable lot than that."

"You're thinking of my _parents_ councilor, neither of whom are around at the moment." She snidely remarked.

A moment of silence passed between them as Marina considered her options, there was no way they were going to stop bothering her, so she might as well dangle a little something for them anyway, after all, it was all going to be done in the spirit of peace and harmony that the Vytal Festival was supposed to promote right?

Right?

"You know what?" Marina suddenly sat up straight and looked right at councilor, "Because I'm feeling rather nice today and because you've been _such_ a gentleman, I'll _consider_ putting together a plan to have a hundred men strong company of legionnaires pay a visit to the Festival as a 'token of the Royal Family's goodwill and appreciation'." Marina smiled.

"Governor you're not-!"

"And that is all you'll get councilor, I suggest if you want a balanced budget you should consider _solving_ your problems." Marina finished and tapped the button to disconnect the signal.

She eased back into her chair, hearing it creak as she leaned back and stared at the ceiling of her office.

 _I think this tea needs a bit more honey._ She thought as she sipped from her cup.

* * *

 _ **Beacon Academy,**_

"Have you heard anything from the Royal Family about this?" Glynda asked as she looked out the window at the incoming airships.

"They were kept as much in the dark about this as I was; I guess the council doesn't enjoy making them party to important events such as these and would prefer to sideline them as much as possible," Ozpin noted as he sipped from his coffee cup, "This is going to be problematic for his highness, especially considering the events of last semester." Ozpin clicked his tongue.

"What will the Royal Family do about this?"

"I have heard nothing from the Crown; I can only hope that they do not act in equal rashness."

"Hmm."

At that moment, a message popped up on Ozpin's desk, requesting access to his office, sighing in realization of who it could only be, he merely answered it with, "Come in."

The doors slid open to reveal the headmaster of Atlas Academy and one of the Atlesian Military's foremost leaders.

General James Ironwood.

"Ozpin!" The General smiled and greeted.

"Hello General," Ozpin returned the greeting.

"Please, drop the formalities, t's been far too long." He walked towards and shook hands with Ozpin before turning to regard Glynda, "And Glynda! It has certainly been too long since we last met."

"Hello James." Glynda nodded before turning away, "I'll just be outside." She said as she walked away.

"Well she certainly hasn't changed." James smiled before turning back to Ozpin.

"So what brings you to Vale James?" Ozpin asked as he picked up a cup and poured out from the kettle and offered it to the General, "Most headmasters don't travel with their students just for the Vytal Festival."

"Well you know how much I love Vale at this time of the year right?" Ironwood replied as he took the mug, and then took out a canteen and poured something out of the canteen into the mug, "Besides you're the one hosting now, I thought we could catch up on things."

"While I do appreciate the quality time between friends here," Ozpin said as he sat down, "A small matter with a fleet of airships has me slightly worried."

"My concern was what brought them here." Ironwood tried pointing out as he drank from his cup.

"Yes indeed," Ozpin did his best not to roll his eyes, "Grimm activity has increased of late hasn't it?"

" _You know_ why I brought them here."

"To be honest I'm not so sure," Ozpin narrowed his eyes, "I can't tell if you're specifically here for our problem or if you're just trying to put on a spectacle to try and impress his highness, or for that matter his family."

"His highness deserves to be kept safe; I'm trying to help ensure that that remains as such." Ironwood explained.

"How?" Ozpin scoffed, "You think an entire military force is going to be of any help? If the Crown Prince thought so he would have sent a company of Royal Legionnaires to accompany the prince, instead he saw fit to dispatch one of the Royal Protectors."

"You're keeping a VIP in your very own halls Ozpin!"

"And I've already taken appropriate measures to ensure his protection." Ozpin stated flatly.

"Really?" Ironwood lifted an eyebrow.

"Yes, in the aftermath of the little incident a few months ago, his highness saw fit to handpick a trio of students outside of his own team to protect him in case of any unforeseen circumstances." Ozpin explained slowly, "With that in mind we should be keeping watch for any further disturbances thanks to the little leak; thankfully I have received no reports of increased activity related to the royal family."

"That incident was dangerous." Ironwood folded his arms, "You should've been more careful letting his highness go around like that on his own."

"May I remind you General, that it was one of your own who compromised his highness's security?" Ozpin narrowed his eyes dangerously, "I'm trying to handle this subtly so his highness can have a peaceful four years here, graduate and go home with a minimum of fuss and problems."

 _Not to mention the problems the Crown Prince is going to give me._ Ozpin held his tongue from saying that out loud.

"That was an accident," Ironwood did his best to appear in control of himself, "Penny was not supposed to have been anywhere near that area, your own students led her to that battle, and you should've been watching his highness more carefully."

"So I'm supposed to confine him to Beacon academy like some sort of prisoner?" Ozpin scoffed.

"Well you can't simply let him walk around Vale like that on his own!" Ironwood shot back.

"Which is the exact reason as to why I allowed his highness to pick out a few among those close to him to serve as his protectors in an unofficial capacity." Ozpin explained.

"And you fully trust his highness's judgement? I'd like to remind you that he's only seventeen." Ironwood narrowed his eyes.

"A seventeen year old who has already seen more than most in one lifetime." Ozpin replied, "You know his story, his sister died in front of him to the White Fang, his city was breached by the Grimm, hundreds dead, he himself nearly died." Ozpin settled and calmed himself down, "The least we can do is allow him to enjoy himself, have a little faith, his highness was trained well, he won't simply lose out in a fight."

"Enjoy himself when he could be so easily targeted by anyone? Let alone the queen?" Ironwood grumbled.

"Well _at least_ it won't be your head that will be on the possibly _literal_ chopping block if something happens to his highness while he is here." Ozpin shot back fiercely.

"I didn't know the Royal Enclaves still practice capital punishment." Ironwood seemed rather surprised

"Well they have carried on with traditions that were cast aside decades ago in the aftermath of the Great War being the last of the four royal families of Remnant. Truth be told I don't know, and I don't want to know, do you Ironwood?" Ozpin lifted an eyebrow questioningly.

The silence that passed between them was deafening.

* * *

 _ **Beacon Library,**_

 _Dear Journal,_

 _Today I met the most interesting and charming woman as I have ever seen in my life, she is flighty, cheerful, energetic, attractive and lovable and she flies a bullhead with skill like nothing I have ever experienced before, I am never again daring her to try to do multiple barrel rolls with that aircraft, I think I made my whole team sick with that little stunt. They all probably hate my guts to the core now; I know this because Pearl is glaring at me harder than ever before._

 _Harder than that one time during initiation when I caused an earthquake._

 _I maintain that if I had not dropped a landslide on those beowolves we would've been swamped! It's not like Team STRQ could've helped out seeing as they were all the way on the other side._

 _Oh and by the way, something I forgot to mention…_

 _She is also one of the children of the king and queen of Vale._

 _…Fuck me right?_

 _Like seriously, what are the odds that I would end up meeting one of them here in Beacon? Even today the House of Vale can be rather reclusive, I may have seen her once or twice at various parties when I was a child but I have never really got the chance to meet them in person, after all we are still technically just mere servants of the crown, our loyal family, generation after generation dedicated to their majesties' service._

 _As it turns out she has always wanted to be a pilot, and is currently staying in Beacon as one of the many pilots attached to their little taxi service for hunters coming to and fro from Beacon as well as hunters departing on missions. Apparently she left with the permission of the King and Queen and is currently living in Vale under the pseudonym "Violet", and has been attending a flying school in Vale._

 _Man I seriously hope I get to see more of her; I can't wait to be able to get to know her better, she seems like a real decent girl, she's probably way too far out of my league but hey, who knows? You never know until you at least try. Besides it's not like I have much to lose even if she rejects me, I mean…_

 _Besides my pride and dignity I guess, and maybe earn the ire of the king and queen but hey that's something for my brother to clean up isn't it? Or my sister, they're the ones back in Armorica._

 _To be honest, I can't say I miss all of them much, so stifling back there, always always with the stupid rules and traditions that brother and sister both love so much, I like it here, it's so much more free and beautiful and full of life unlike dull, dark and dreary home._

 _I will rue the day I ever have to leave this place._

Jaune turned a page and continued reading without stopping, as he did so he found a picture pasted along one page with a poem of sorts written on the other side. The picture showed a tall woman with the same chestnut brown hair that Marina and Crystal had, she wore it in a tight bun with a visor on her forehead and a cheeky smile on her face with her hands on her hips. Her outfit consisted of a light brown jacket over a white shirt with dark brown shorts and boots, she also wore a pair of aviator gloves on her hands.

As with the picture of Team CORA, Jaune immediately knew who it was without a second thought. His mother, Princess Viola, the younger sister of his uncle Crown Prince Edward, a skilled pilot with a lust for adventure and excitement, she faithfully followed his father wherever he went, taking along with them her beloved customized airship the _Sky Cracker_.

He turned his attention to the poem written on the opposite page.

 _Oh dearest Viola,_

 _Love of my life,_

 _Light of my light,_

 _Your very presence makes my heart soar,_

 _As high as the craft that you fly,_

 _Dearly beloved of my heart,_

 _Flame of my life,_

 _Fire of my light,_

 _The lone candle in a swirling darkness,_

 _Let your light shine true forevermore,_

 _My candle,_

 _My eternal light,_

Jaune could not help but sigh and crack an amused smile, what a hopeless romantic his father had been, courting ace pilots who were the daughters of the kings and queens that he was supposed to serve. And yet strangely, Jaune supposed that it was this irresponsibility to their duties that caused the two to bond together so well, the result of course being a missing pair of Duke and Duchess of Armorica.

He frowned and clenched his fist at his side as the few memories he had of them came rushing back to him. Days of peace and tranquility, of picnics and daydreams, of smiles and warm touches, playing with his older sisters, helping take care of his younger sisters, laughing at each other, teasing each other, telling jokes with each other, time spent together just lounging on the couch in the living room with their rather big family…

Happiness

His thoughts were rudely interrupted when he felt something bounce off his head; he turned to the side to see Team RWBY playing that board game of theirs that they enjoyed so much.

"Have you no heart?!" Ruby cried out mournfully as she collapsed on the table crying in grief and sorrow for her loss.

Jaune listened for a while as Yang tried to explain the rules of the game to Weiss and how Vacuo was apparently supposed to work. Leading up to Weiss apparently declaring herself the new tyrant-lord-ruler of all of Remnant as she gathered all of her forces to crush the remaining resistance under an iron boot…

Right before Yang counterattacked and apparently vanquished Weiss's entire army.

 _Great job Weiss, probably shouldn't have let yourself get outfoxed by Yang so quickly just because she was helping you, you really should've seen that one coming._ Jaune smirked to himself and was about to return to reading his journal when he heard his partner chose to speak up next.

"Jaune, shouldn't you be studying?" Pyrrha looked at him from her textbook.

"Pyrrha I aced the history test last week _despite_ that hellish week we went through without air-conditioning, give me a little time to myself please?" Jaune sighed and returned her look.

"But you're not doing very well in other subjects." Pyrrha pointed out, "I mean you did improve somewhat in Port's Grimm Studies and you're maintaining your position in combat class, but other than that you're just getting on by with a bare minimum."

"Bare minimum _of effort_ Pyrrha." Jaune corrected her.

"I'm sure that if you put in more effort instead of just coasting by like this you could easily be one of the best here!" She insisted.

Jaune shrugged and turned back to his book, trying to find the place where he had stopped right before he was interrupted, "Well it's not like I'm aiming for the top position in the academy or something, I'm doing just fine here you know."

"But you could be so much better than you are now." Pyrrha chided, "What are you reading anyway? You haven't taken your eyes off that book since you got it." She reached across the table for it, Jaune quickly pulled it back.

"No touching, _private_ stuff." He declared sternly and Pyrrha pulled her hand back with an apologetic expression. In truth, his father's journal had actually been one of the reasons for his recent improvement in Grimm Studies, one of the things his father seemed to have enjoyed doing was to include detailed descriptions of the Grimm he had fought during his time as well as their best counters and exploitable weaknesses, it had enabled him to ratchet up his score somewhat in the last test without requiring him to set his scroll on record mode for the class.

"I'm sorry, but still you _should_ be putting in more effort Jaune."

 _What for though?_ Jaune thought, _Not like I'm planning to be the greatest hunter who ever lived and died, my uncle would never allow for such a thing, much less my grandparents, and after what my father did…_ Jaune shook away those thoughts and focused back on the situation at hand.

"I'm _fine_ Pyrrha," Jaune reiterated, "You know not everyone here finds it as _naturally_ easy as you do when it comes to being a hunter-in-training." He verily snapped before realizing his mistake when the expression on Pyrrha's face contorted, he pressed his palm into one side of his face and looked down, "Sorry, that was completely uncalled for, I shouldn't have said that."

Ren's eyes shifted between the two, regarding both carefully.

"T-that's not what I meant!" Pyrrha stuttered out and looked away bashfully for a moment,. Ren looked between the two, things had mellowed out between the three since Pyrrha had returned from summer break, and given that she had seemed to have had a good time at home he was wondering if he should just give up on the issue, well at least Jaune was not being smug in anyway about it. In fact the whole thing had more or less been dropped when Pyrrha had come back all smiles.

So it seemed a little strange that Jaune was acting so snappy and irritable at times.

Ren turned his head at the sound of some shouting, it seemed like Team RWBY had become a lot more rambunctious in the meantime while JNPR had been occupied, a crying Weiss was holding on to a crying Ruby while Yang was making a rather triumphant smile and Blake was just looking rather confused.

"So who's winning now?" Jaune called out.

"I _totally_ am of course!" Yang smirked smugly and jerked her thumb to herself, to everyone's surprise Jaune got off the table and walked over to Team RWBY.

"Need some help with that?" He asked as he stood right next to Weiss, Weiss turned to give him an incredulous look.

"Don't worry, if I need help saving the good citizens of Vacuo, you'll be the first on the list of people to call." Weiss waved her hand dismissively.

"Seeing as the good citizens of Vacuo appear to be getting stomped on under the glorious rule of your ladyship, I'll be over there if you change your mind." Jaune jerked his thumb and walked back to his seat, Weiss rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out when Jaune's back was turned, much to Yang's amusement.

"Hey gang," A certain monkey Faunus greeted as he approached them with a blue-haired boy at his side.

"Hey Sun!" Ruby waved excitedly.

"Ok so that's Ruby, Yang, Blake…Ice Queen…" Sun pointed out accordingly, "And that's Jaune, Pyrrha, Nora and Ren."

"Why the heck does everyone keep calling me that?" Weiss folded her arms and glared at Sun.

"Cuz you are one." Yang explained.

"Am not!" Weiss protested while Yang shook her head with a bemused expression.

"Sorry but I never got the chance to properly introduce you my friend here." Sun gestured to the boy standing; Jaune scrunched up his eyebrows and tilted his head to the side quizzically, trying to remember where he had seen the other boy from before.

"Aren't libraries for reading?" The boy said as he looked around him.

"Thank you!" Ren threw his hands up into the air.

"Pancakes!" Nora smiled.

"Excuse me? It's 'intellectual' alright? Thank you." The boy growled before waving at them, "I'm Neptune." He greeted.

"Oh hey!" Jaune suddenly perked up, "You're the guy who had a pie on his head after we wrecked the courtyard that day!"

An awkward silence passed through the air at that.

"Uh…so Neptune!" Weiss tried to clear the air, "Where are you from?" She asked politely.

"Haven," Neptune grinned as he approached Weiss and held out his hand, "I don't believe I caught your name snow angel." He gave a cheesy smile and wink.

Weiss visibly went red and stumbled over her words, "Uh, I'm Weiss." She gave an awkward smile.

Yang looked at the exchange with wide eyes and then exchanged a look with Jaue, who looked equally as dumbfounded at the conversation and mouthed, _Are you fucking kidding me?!_ At Jaune.

Jaune merely shook his head as he moved to stand beside Yang.

"Did he just..?" Yang's mouth opened and closed without words coming out.

"Yes." Jaune answered flatly.

"Did she just…?"

"Yes."

"What on Remnant…?"

"I don't know, but I'm pretty sure she'd slap me upside the head if I ever tried that line." Jaune rolled his eyes.

"Oh hush the both of you." Weiss deadpanned with a sharp glare as she turned back to Neptune.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Weiss." Neptune gave a quaint little bow as Jaune returned to his seat and Sun moved to where Blake was.

"I didn't know you liked board games." He raised an eyebrow as he looked down at her.

"I don't." Blake flatly replied before she got up and began walking away, "See you guys around." She mumbled.

"…What's gotten into her lately?" Jaune asked.

"Beats us." Yang shrugged.

"Well I guess _you_ can take her place then." Weiss turned to look at the board.

"Thanks Weiss-" Jaune was swiftly interrupted by the heiress.

"Not _you,_ " She corrected, "I meant _him_." She gestured to Neptune.

"Oh." And Jaune sat right back down to continue reading.

As far as he could tell, the journal covered everything from his father's first day in Beacon right down to his graduation day and nearly everything else in-between, it was updated on a rather impromptu basis but with incredible meticulous detail, with dates and labels and times and sketches stuck on in notes stapled and pasted throughout the book. If not a journal, it would have worked as a rather decently well-written book on Beacon Academy, covering everything from the teachers to fellow classmates and missions conducted under the watchful eyes of professional hunters.

Grimm types, weapons, friends and enemies, it had the lot of it.

Now Jaune thoroughly hated both of his parents, they had trained their first and eldest child Annie and she had taken off to Beacon on her own, and after a certain incident right after her graduation where she was stripped of her license she took off as a gun-for-hire and more or less stayed away from home until the attack two years ago, only then did she start to spend more time within the royal enclaves. On the other hand, the book had piqued his interest in his father and mother when they had been at Beacon, and he resolved to find out more about them.

He decided to start off by going to the airship hangar, where he hoped there would be some memories of his mother lying about, and hey, maybe one of the really old-timers there might have known her when she was working here in Beacon. He increased his pace, excited at the prospect of getting to know a few things about his disappeared mother, and hopefully his disappeared father as well.

Maybe then he could get some answers for why they had disappeared.

So lost in thought was he while walking that when he turned a corner, he ran right into someone and both went tumbling to the ground.

"Oh sorry!" He got up quickly and dusted himself off before offering his hand; he was immediately struck by the sight.

The uniform clearly indicated that she was a student of Haven Academy, behind her were two more students probably members of her team, she herself had long, flowing ebony hair, bright amber eyes, long slim legs and a… _really_ nice curvy body.

Like hourglass shaped, not all that different from Pyrrha's.

"So sorry, I should've been watching where I was going." Jaune apologized again.

"No worries, I should've been more careful." The woman waved it away.

"Well…uh…let me give you a hand," Jaune held out his hand, the woman smiled and took it, allowing Jaune to pull her to her feet.

 _She's strong alright, firm grip too._ He mentally registered.

"You must be here from Haven, my name is Jaune Arc." He shook her hand warmly and she returned the gesture.

"And I'm Cinder Fall, these are my teammates Mercury Black and Emerald Sustrai." Cinder gestured behind her.

"Uh huh, well sorry I can't stay and chat, I have my own business to attend to, do enjoy your say at Beacon!" He smiled and quickly walked by them.

 _Well they seem like a nice bunch._ He thought as he moved on.

* * *

"What was that all about?" Emerald asked.

"Hm, just confirming something." Cinder nodded with a sly smile, "Yes, that _definitely_ was the prince himself in the flesh, the only thing to do now is to figure out _why_ he is here, I can't think of a reason as to why the royal family would allow one of their own to get sent so far out and away from their beloved enclaves."

"Hey, maybe the dude just got bored or something, you never know." Mercury shrugged.

"Hm…unless…" Cinder stopped and looked thoughtful for a moment before shaking her head and carrying on, "No, we cannot make any assumptions, we need more information before we move on this." She quirked a sinister smile as she went, "For now we will carry on as usual, no reason to be disrupted by such a little thing as this."

* * *

 ** _Somewhere in Vale,_**

"Hey hurry it up will you?! We don't have all day you damn animals!" Roman shouted at the group of White Fang troopers moving crates about, many of whom grumbled quietly but kept their displeasure down, some were clearly eyeing him suspiciously and would probably take a knife to him if they were allowed to do so.

Unfortunately, they were not, so they did not.

Roman grunted as he watched them go, he dearly wished he did not have to rely on them, but hey, they were all technically in the same boat together, all being forced to work together by that flaming bitch of a woman and her two psycho children that followed her around wherever she went.

At least now that she was in Beacon he could afford to relax a little, not having her around to threaten him every five minutes was a real blessing, and he was going to soak in as much of that time as he could, it was his one small crumb of comfort in his often rather fast, exciting and dangerous world.

"Roman." A dark voice growled out, a shiver went up the criminal's spine and he grit his teeth and frowned, but he kept himself guarded as he turned to regard his co-worker, "What're you doing?" The man stepped up to him to glare from behind his mask.

And then that crumb…crumbled away.

"Just making sure the troops are doing their job, that's all." Roman kept his voice level as he faced the leader of the White Fang.

"I believe my men can do their job just fine without your _needless and incessant_ whining." Adam Taurus moved so that he was right in Roman's face, the criminal did not even twitch as he faced down the bullheaded terrorist.

Even under normal circumstances, Roman doubted if he could properly match Adam in a one-on-one fight, this doubt was however, amplified by the fact that he did not have Melodic Cudgel with him, a replacement was being worked on but it would be a little while before it could be delivered to him, until then he was going to have to make do with a simple revolver.

Simple, but it usually got the job done.

Unless the job happened to be some batshit –in Roman's view at least- insane revolutionary terrorist guy with a sword who would happily murder anyone to advance the cause of the Faunus people yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah.

"Hey," Roman shrugged, "Just giving a 'lil encouragement on my part."

"We can do just fine without your 'encouragement' _thanks_." Adam snarled and Roman swore he could see the vein pop under the mask.

"Sure thing pal," Roman rolled his eyes and turned away, "Just don't complain to me when Ms. Fire-bitch gets all up in our faces for being behind schedule." Roman forced back a smirk as he saw the other man stiffen and twitch slightly; even the leader of the White Fang would hesitate a little when facing that woman.

"Well if that's all you got for me I'm going somewhere else," Roman was about to walk away when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

" _Stop_ ," Adam's voice rang out again, and then the atmosphere got really tense, a drop of sweat trickled down Roman's brow past his eye and he gave a hard swallow on the lump in his throat, he forced himself to act as flippant as possible when he turned and brushed aside Adam's hand.

"What do you want now?" He tried his best to ask without cracking his voice.

"I've been hearing rumors from my own people." Adam said with a dark and low voice.

 _Oh god, rumors? That can't be good at all._ "What rumors?" Roman lifted an eyebrow, He personally suspected what Adam was talking about though, one of his hands made for the lighter and cigarette in his coat pocket, he was feeling himself getting twitchy again.

"Is it true that a prince from the Royal Enclaves is in Vale?"

Roman went stock still with his head bowed and his hand paused for a moment as his eyes flicked left and right, Cinder had been very clear on where they stood with regards to the prince.

* * *

 ** _Aftermath of docks incident,_**

"Just so I'm absolutely clear on this," Cinder gave the sort of radiant smile that would make men shiver in their pants, " _No one_ is going to know about this, no one will know that there is a prince in Vale, no one will know that there is a VIP hiding out, no one will know anything about him at all, is that understood?" She said firmly.

"Uh, sure thing," Roman nodded uncertainly.

"Can I count on you to quash any possible rumors of his highness Roman?" Cinder purred while Roman looked left and right shiftily.

"That won't be a problem here," He gestured to himself, "Can't say anything about those White Fang who made it out of there though."

"Well then I guess you'd better make sure that their lips are airtight hm?"

* * *

"I'm pretty sure it'd be all over the news if a prince was in town." Roman made a hollow chuckle as his hand resumed its motion and fished out his lighter and cigarette. He was going to have to find a way out of this conversation as it was starting to verge on rather dangerous territory.

"Hmm, because I could've sworn one of my men mentioned something involving you where someone might've shouted out 'your highness'," Adam replied.

"That goon probably has a few screws loose then, I certainly didn't hear anything of that sort." Roman snorted as he lit up his cigarette and took a puff on it, "Like I said, I'm pretty sure a prince would be all the talk of town if there was one."

The terrorist squinted carefully at the criminal, Roman had long ago learned the method of lying with a perfectly straight face, and not a twitch gave him away, and it took a moment but it seemed like Adam gave up first.

"Hmph, alright then," Adam stepped away, "I suppose I would be the first to know anyway."

"Why are you so curious anyway? Got a beef with them or something?" And then Roman mentally facepalmed at his own pun but kept a straight face as Adam turned to direct a look of pure death at him.

"Just…checking." Adam finished and walked away.

 _Just checking huh?_ Roman ground his teeth and narrowed his eyes; he was going to need to get extra help for this.

* * *

 **Close call Roman, we'll have to see if your luck holds up.**

 **On a scale of 0-10, with 0 being "that was so stupid" and 10 being "That was an all-annihilating wheel of cheese", how sappy was the poem I concocted above? It only took me like, 10 minutes to think up so I'm really interested to see what you think of it.**

 **And before anyone else says it, I'm not looking to try to redeem Jaune's parents in anyway, they left their children to fend for themselves while taking off to parts unknown and have not been seen by anyone since, that's a mark of a kinda crappy parent and I'm not looking to change that, what I am trying to do is develop the two a bit more from Jaune's perspective.**

 **I had a hard time coming up with an omake for this chapter...until I realized I _haven't_ done anything with Nora in a long time, and then it hit me right then and there.**

 **There was something perfect for me to use Nora for.**

* * *

 **15-hit critical combo: Nora edition**

The days after the little incident in the dining hall were mainly _very awkward_. Jaune would often wake up in bed surrounded by the members of Team RWBY and JNPR, usually Yang would be on one arm, Pyrrha would on the other, Weiss and Ruby would occupy one leg each and Blake would be right on top of him. It was rather suffocating and once or twice he may or may not have accidentally kicked either Weiss or Ruby of the bed in the middle of the night, which would in turn lead to Yang and Pyrrha snuggling closer while Blake purred happily on top of him.

Not only that, many of the students could no longer face him as he walked through the halls of Beacon. Girls would shyly blush and look the other way, boys would scowl and grit their teeth...and _then_ look the other way.

The whole situation was a mess.

Of course the staff themselves made the situation more awkward, Goodwitch would always give Jaune a dark look as if she was watching him in the event that he decided to violate anymore females in the school. Port was all over him with congratulations in the aftermath of the incident for winning over the hearts of so many fair and innocent maidens. Oobleck had been more neutral about the whole thing, but told Jaune that he preferred if the boy could not have done the -in his opinion- rather indecent deed out in the open like that.

Other than that though, life carried on as usual, with the possible exception of one of Jaune's teammates.

The Hammer Maiden Nora Valkyrie.

She was now perpetually on guard whenever he was around, and while she had always been rather clingy to Ren, she now practically made sure that whenever Jaune was around, Ren was basically in between the two of them, she would always be sneaking glances at him, forever on guard against the fate that had befallen her female friends. Jaune did wonder what the hammer maiden was like in a kiss though, so he made it a point to try and get Nora alone.

Which happened to be when Ren got into the shower at the end of a long day, fortunately, Pyrrha herself was only just returning from the training grounds so she still was not in the room.

That gave Jaune the perfect excuse to be with the high-strung hammer maiden alone for a while.

Nora certainly realized that fact, which was why she was currently watching Jaune like a hawk with one hand gripping her pillow tightly as she sat on her bed.

"Hey Nora-" Jaune tried to say but was rapidly cut-off.

"You're not getting me Jaune-Jaune!" Nora said as she brandished her pillow like a dangerous weapon.

"Oh come on!" Jaune smiled lightly, "Just one?"

"NO!" Nora said firmly, "For Ren only."

"Aw c'mon Nora, I'm sure Ren doesn't mind sharing." Jaune smirked.

"Not a chance Jaune-Jaune." She waved the pillow dangerously in his face, despite though Jaune approached calmly.

"I think its because you're afraid, you don't want to end up like those other girls do you?" He approaching with a dark smirk on his face

"Who says I'm afraid?!" Nora growled out angrily.

"Well the fact that you're always hiding behind Ren says so."

" _Oh really_?" Then it was Nora's turn to smirk, "Do you really want to test these lips Jaune?"

"Why not? I've already gone through everyone else." Jaune nodded.

"Well then you'd better hurry up before Ren gets out of the shower." So saying this she dropped her pillow and to Jaune's complete surprise, managed to make a rather sexy 'come-hither' gesture. Jaune tackled her onto her bed immediately and slammed his lips onto hers, his tongue reaching deep into her mouth, to his surprise she did not try to fight back at all, preferring instead to let Jaune slowly lean down onto her until he was right on top of her. Unsurprisingly, she tasted rather sweet, probably from all the maple syrup and pancakes.

What Jaune did not notice as he got absorbed in his little make out session, was that in the course of it, one of Nora's hands had gone to a pen on her bedside table, grabbing hold of the pen tightly as Jaune remained distracted, she reached down and felt around on the wall until she found exactly what she was looking for.

The power socket.

And then Jaune felt his entire body light up in…in what he could not exactly say, but it was certainly _shocking_.

"MMMMMPPPPHHHHMMMM!" He screamed into the kiss as Nora pushed back harder and harder as she activated and pushed her semblance to the maximum, pooling together all of the power that she had drained out of the socket and forcing it up through her body and into him. Jaune did his best to disconnect, although between the way his body had gone completely tense coupled with Nora's grip on him, he did not have a smidgen of a chance.

It took less than a minute, but when Nora released him

"What on Remnant is going on here?" Ren asked as he stumbled out of the shower to see Jaune knocked out cold on Nora's lap.

"Hehe," Nora giggled, "Guess Jaune-y couldn't handle these lips."

* * *

 **Didn't see that one coming did you Jaune? I must say it feels refreshing to finally do something for our hyper Valkyrie**

 **You know I was just thinking what an incredible and hilarious twist it would be if it turned out Nora and Ren were just platonic friends and she ends up with Jaune.**

 **The fandom would just explode/implode/whatever.**

 **I deeply appreciate all your reviews, faves and follows!**


	21. In for a Penny

**One heck of a late update to the usual weekly system, I was partly working on a one-shot fic for an idea (might release it in a few days after some polish) and partly because I was seriously lacking in inspiration for this chapter. Much like "Ride of the Valkyries" this chapter did not really turn out as planned.**

 **I'd say more, but do read first.**

* * *

 _Silverback –_

 _Large, humanoid like Grimm, largest height I ever saw was about one-and-a-half stories tall. Very strong, arms are built like fucking tree trunks or something, also incredibly armored, could tank the total firepower of a volley of Nero's charged arrows. Required Pearl at maximum enhancement (damn near killed her getting there) just to try to match it, was able to kill with a dual attack with Rosso. One tough sonuvabitch._

 _Main weakness appears to be its own strength, very dependent on arms for both movement and attack, focusing on those areas would disable it quickly._

 _Extra notes: Can be surprisingly fast and reactive, don't ever underestimate their ability to counterattack quickly._

Jaune looked at the opposite page, showing an image of a powerful looking Grimm walking on its hands and legs, although its legs were small in proportion to its armored body and arm length, it was almost certainly counterbalanced by the sheer size of its arms. They looked more than capable of crashing steel and concrete, let alone a single human.

He shuddered to imagine facing one in real life; he flipped the page to the next entry.

 _Reaver –_

 _Some kind of weird, hyper-armored insect-like thing with six legs and some horns on its head, there are also a set of spiked tentacles sprouting on its underside, can grow to easily as big as a house. Don't bother trying to attack from above, its armor is just incapable of being penetrated as far as I know, well at least a fully charged shot from Nero was not able to do it, I cut off one leg in front to slow it down, Nero destroyed another to flip it and we let Rosso and Pearl finish it off._

 _Its underside is surprisingly unarmored and can be easily penetrated once one gets past those tentacles. Quickly cutting off the tentacles to rid it of one attacking method and then flipping it over would make it an easy kill._

 _Extra notes: its rather slow and definitely can't move very fast, those tentacles are very quick and agile so watch out for them._

Once again on the opposite page was a sketch of the Grimm, a massive, very insectoid-like body, the head had a pair of large horns on top although they looked too big to be of much use in combat against a fast moving hunter.

A mental image created itself inside Jaune's head as he imagined his own team and Team RWBY dancing around it and attacking it from all directions in a highly coordinated assault like that one time with the Manticore, although personally he would rather not end up in a fight with something like that if he could help it.

 _Forest Lurker –_

 _Very thin but rather tall-humanoid Grimm, can come in both packs and individuals, safer to just assume it's in a pack all the time. Hyper-lethal, looks like someone poured tar all over a starved human being and then ripped out their fingers and replaced them with these giant, oversized fucking talons that can rip through tree trunks stupidly easily, it also makes them adept at climbing trees to drop down on unsuspecting people below, if you see claw marks on trees nearby watch above you._

 _They're very weak though; I think the average person could lift and punch one to death if they could get past those fucking claws._

 _Lightning fast, and very intelligent, if they couldn't get the drop on you, individuals will pack up and come back an hour or so later to try again. If in a pack though, they will happily hide behind a tree and play peekaboo while waiting for you to turn your goddamn back to them._

 _NEVER engage alone unless you're insane or have a deathwish._

 _We encountered a pack of these inside the Blackwood, one damn near took my head off and another nearly ripped Pearl's spine out before we figured that just staying with our backs to each other was the best strategy_

 _Extra note: Still cannot believe the size of those claws, I think whoever the fuck created the Grimm was having a cheap laugh when they decided to create this little bastard._

And when Jaune turned the page, his eyes went wide, it looked like someone had taken a human skeleton and then draped some black cloth all over it and then tightened it. Its wide red eyes stared blankly outward, draining the life out of anyone facing it, long dreadlocks flowed over the top of its head, it was hunched over, on its hands were a set of four broad talons the length of its shins.

Jaune tried to imagine facing one of these, or a pack of these in a forest, and found the thought rather terrifying. He tried to imagine how he might try to deal with such a situation, his entire team back to back, nervously watching while shadows ran and ducked between the trees. Sweating running down his face, gritting teeth to prevent them from chattering, an almost nail-biting tension waiting for the next attack to come.

…

He dismissed those thoughts with a shake of his head and turned his attention back to the book, doing his best to absorb the information as he read it, along with the somewhat terrifying sketches that his father had drawn here and there. All of it was certainly by and large far more interesting than whatever Professor Port was talking about.

While all of this was going on inside Jaune's head as he continued to read through his father's journal, a much different thought process was taking place just a short distance away.

Beside him, Weiss sighed and looked at the clock as the second hand ticked by.

 _One minute, one bloody minute! Come on time! Why don't you ever fly like hell when someone needs you too!_ Weiss begged mentally as Professor Port droned on again about something or the other related to…well at this point she was not entirely sure what exactly it was related to, but since this was Professor Port they were talking about, it was probably something involving that one time when he wrestled an Ursa Major naked in the snow or something.

 _This isn't fair! Why is he somehow able to pay any attention to this guy when I'm struggling to-_ Weiss's thoughts stopped in their tracks when she noticed what Jaune was actually doing. He had his attention glued to what appeared to be a rather old-looking book bound with a brown hard cover. She had seen him reading it quite often these days whenever she saw him, as far as she knew it had come in the package a few weeks ago.

He appeared to be so utterly absorbed in the book that he had not taken notice of anything else around him.

 _Reading storybooks in class huh Jaune…?_ Weiss smirked, _I guess even you would need help with this kind of boredom, still I didn't think you'd take the Blake route of dealing with things._

At that moment, Weiss had a brainwave as she watched Jaune flip a page, he appeared to be sitting stock still, so engaged was he that he had apparently lost complete track of his surroundings. She smirked widely as she reached over to him.

And poked him deep in his side.

"GAH!" Jaune cried out in pain and leapt to his feet rubbing his side painfully while Weiss immediately looked away and acted as nonchalantly as possible by checking her nails while internally desperately doing her best not to crack up and laugh at the situation.

"Ah yes Mr. Arc! So what do you think is the main weakness of a King Taijitu?" Port asked with a booming voice.

"Uh…" Jaune was completely stumped; he shot a dark look at Weiss, who was giving the _worst_ expression of mock innocence he had ever seen.

 _I swear I'm going to get back at you for that._ Jaune growled in his head.

"Well Mr. Arc? What's your answer?" Jaune gulped as he tried to come up with something.

His saving grace was when the bell rang to announce the end of class.

"And that's all for today students! Sorry to say that I can't share more stories of myself, I'll see you all next time!" He waved at them as sleeping and half-awake students dragged themselves to their feet and prepared to stumble out of the class slowly in their groups.

Weiss was giggling and snickering as they exited the class, "Should've seen the look on your face." She smirked.

"I'll be sure to get back at you for that ice queen." Jaune ground his teeth and glared at her from the side.

"Ooh, I'm positively _quivering_ in my boots." Weiss gave a mocking smile as she backed away from Jaune as he reached out to grab her. Jaune sighed and returned the smile as he let his hand fall to his side, an arm draped itself over his shoulders, and he turned to find Yang grinning at him.

"Saved by the bell huh permarcfrost?" She ruffled his hair affectionately; Jaune pulled her hand away and ducked away.

"Sorry we'd love to stay and chat but uh…we've got stuff to do…so see you guys around!" Ruby said as she dragged the two away while waving, Blake followed behind, but not before shooting Jaune a rather strange look before smirking and continuing on her way.

"What was that about?" Pyrrha asked as she came up.

"Beats me." Jaune shrugged, "Well let's get on to lunch, I'm hungry." He stretched out his arms and began walking away with his team following close behind.

"Yes, to the lunch stand!" Nora cheered as she jumped on Ren's back.

"Yang's not around though." Ren remarked.

"Then to the dining hall Renny! You too leader! Pyrrha!" She cheered.

Since Team RWBY was apparently buys doing their own thing, Yang had asked to temporarily close down the stall until they were done. Despite questioning, none of them had so much as given a proper answer as to why or what they were doing, and JNPR had simply let it go, preferring to trust that their friends knew what they were doing.

As the team waited in line for their turn to be served, one of the assistant chefs noticed them.

"Hey Ren! Not operating the stall today?" He called out to Ren who nodded in response.

"Yeah, the other cook is busy today so we decided to call it a day and take a break."

"Aw, that's too bad for us I guess." He nodded at the line of students piling up, Ren merely raised his shoulder to shrug in response.

Once they had all gotten their food –with Nora making sure it was _several_ plates and servings worth of food- , they all settled down together, it was a much more quiet affair than usual considering that Team RWBY was not together with them and so the Team was happy to lapse into a comfortable silence eating with the noisiest being Nora scarfing down several pieces of potato salad at the same time without stopping. And even that seemed rather controlled, so quiet were they that-

"SALUTATIONS JAUNE." A loud voice went off behind Jaune's back, he was so startled he choked and spat his tea across the table, thankfully without Team RWBY around he did not end up spitting into anyone's face, he hacked and coughed a few times before he spun around to find himself looking at the strange girl from the docks months ago.

"…Penny?" He swallowed hard and gazed at the girl inquisitively.

"Hi there friend!" She greeted enthusiastically and then leaned in close to him, _uncomfortably_ close.

"Uh…hi…?" Jaune tried, silently wracking his brains over a way out of this and wondering if she was going to just blurt out his title in front of everyone again.

"So how are you today?" Penny continued smiling with wide, unblinking eyes.

"…I'm…fine?" Jaune said a little timidly.

"Jaune who is this?" Pyrrha asked with an irritated tone in her voice.

"Huh? Oh right this is Penny, she was with us that night at the docks, what are you doing here Penny?"

"I'm just here visiting a friend!" She cheerily stated.

Jaune wondered about that, as far as he knew Penny had completely vanished after the little incident at the docks, when all had been said and done and he had revealed himself before Ruby, Blake and Sun, and after the White Fang troopers had their legs apparently shattered to pieces. She had more or less disappeared from the scene with nary a word or whistle, leaving all of them scratching their heads as to where she had gone.

And now here she was, in his face, greeting him enthusiastically at the top of her voice, smiling brightly as if nothing like blowing his cover wide open had happened, acting as though they had known each other for a long time.

Just what was coming to this world?

"Erm…well…" Jaune sucked in a lungful of air before exhaling to calm himself down, "Penny this is Pyrrha, Nora and Ren, they're my teammates here at Beacon." He introduced them in order.

"Are they your friends too?" Penny asked with wide eyes and raised eyebrows.

"Yes, these are my friends." Jaune said in as straightforward a manner as he could manage in front of this strange girl.

"Any friends of Jaune are friends of mine as well!" She bowed towards them; the other three members of Team JNPR exchanged wary looks before nodding in her direction.

 _At least it doesn't look like she's about to blurt out your highness in front of everyone again._ Jaune breathed a sigh of relief.

"So ah…if you're here…" Jaune started slowly, "Then have you seen Ruby, Blake and Sun yet?"

"Ah, well you see…" Her expression immediately fell and she suddenly looked rather bashful and ashamed of herself fidgeting with her hands and feet. Jaune immediately wondered what it was that he had done wrong again.

"I…I don't know what you're talking about." She answered flatly.

*HIC*

Jaune blinked, "Bless you." He remarked.

"T-thanks." She smiled awkwardly.

…

A very awkward silence descended upon the group, no one really knowing what to say, Jaune was merely grateful that she had not decided to blurt out 'your highness' again in front of everyone like she once had.

"So…" Jaune tried to strike another conversation, " _What_ are you doing here Penny?"

"I'm just visiting a friend of course."

"Uh… _huh_ , well speaking of visiting friends, when you vanished after the docks Ruby got really worried about you, you should go see her and tell her you're ok." Jaune explained, wondering what was up with the girl, she was acting a lot more differently compared to her cheerful and flighty self, well at least from what he could tell just by the few minutes they had spent together.

"Its fine, she already knows about that." Penny said quickly.

*HIC*

"There's some water at the counter if your hiccups are really bad."

"No, no it's fine, I just ah…need a moment."

*HIC*

"Are you sure you're alright? I could just help you-"

"I'm ok! I just wanted to apologize!"

…

"Uh…for what?" Jaune asked timidly, this conversation was rapidly going to a place he did _not_ need it to go it.

Penny fidgeted with her hands and feet ruefully for a moment before speaking, although by that time Jaune had already figured out what she was going to say, "I'm sorry for tell-"

"IT'S ALRIGHT!" Jaune quickly blurted out -much to his team's shock as they stared at him- as he felt himself break out into cold sweat, he did not have time for this. Now he really hoped he could just end the conversation and send her away before anything else happened, "I mean its fine, I'm fine, you're fine, everyone was ok and nothing bad happened so it's all good and well and you don't need to worry about _a single thing_ alright?" Jaune quickly rattled off.

"Oh…alright then!" Penny considerably brightened up, "So how're you Jaune? Everything ok?"

Jaune was not entirely sure how to respond to that, between having to pick at scars he was sure were starting to fade gradually and having his own identity be blown wide open potentially in front of a prominent leader of a criminal organization who might be gunning for his head at that very moment. Even as the days passed by in Beacon his mind remained on that thought, it was why he had Blake, Ruby and Sun around for at least, even if he was unlikely to be capable of outright protecting himself, he trusted them to be able to help him out if he needed it.

* * *

 _ **Meanwhile at Team RWBY's dorm,**_

"Hang on, excuse me, sorry about that," Sun pushed his way past Yang and Weiss and to everyone's astonishment, he grabbed a hold of both Ruby and Blake and pulled them away, "Excuse me, I need to talk with Blake and Ruby for a minute in private, do carry on between yourselves." Both Blake and Ruby looked at each other in confusion. Without waiting for a response Sun yanked both of them out of the dorm and took them down the hallway some distance.

"What's going on Sun?" Blake pulled her hand away, folded her arms and glared at him.

"Yeah what's going on? You're acting weird." Ruby agreed as Sun let go and turned to face them.

"Are you two sure about this?" Sun asked with trepidation.

"Positive." Ruby nodded.

"Of course." Blake lifted an eyebrow, "What's the matter with you?"

"Well, cause you see…we still got that thing with the Prince don't we?" Sun fidgeted a little, "So aren't you two like, abandoning your posts or something?"

"And that's why _you're_ staying behind." Blake answered, "Jaune only needs one of us, plus he has his own team with him now, all the better it is for us to go and eliminate the threat first before it comes to him, its only logical, this way we can prevent a future attack and gather any intel on who else might know."

"What, me?" Sun gestured to himself incredulously, "You expect _me_ to stay behind while the rest of you run off into danger like that? Nuh uh, no way, not happening, absolutely not." He folded his arms across his chest and stated firmly with a frown on his face.

"Well _you're_ the one who's so worried about Jaune." Blake pointed out and leaned forward

"Hey I thought _you_ were the one liked sticking with him or something." Both of Sun's eyes were wide with surprise, "I mean you were willing to drop everything and follow him into town just because."

"Well…" Blake leaned back and trailed off for a moment before speaking, "I guess bodyguarding a prince is not all it's cracked up to be." She shrugged, "You could say the initial high and excitement is kinda over, I mean seriously what _did_ we do the whole time? Follow him around for a bit and occasionally talk with him."

Both Ruby and Sun went quiet at that as they contemplated the thought.

"Face it you two, the best way for us to solve this situation is to figure out what Roman and the White Fang are up to and shut them down quickly before they put into action whatever it is that they're planning, and along the way, we might be able to find out any plans they might have for our highness." Blake explained, "Pre-emptive action, we act first, force their hand to reveal their play, and with that we can prevent any future incident from occurring, thus we are acting firmly in his highness's best interests and no one can really say otherwise." Blake finished with a huff.

"So are you with us or not? Because you can seriously just stay here and continue lazing about if you want." Blake shot Sun a very intense look while Ruby just stood of to one side to await the conclusion.

Sun lowered his gaze and fidgeted with his feet for a while in quiet contemplation, after a few moments he looked up with a resigned expression on his face, "…Alright you've got a point, so where should we begin?"

Blake smirked.

* * *

"I'm doing just fine Penny, why don't you take a seat?" Jaune shifted to give her some space, "I can fill you in onanything you've missed although I personally don't think you missed much."

"Oh that's ok, actually I have to go now."

*HIC*

"You really should do something about those hiccups."

"It's ok! I'm perfectly alright!"

*HIC*

"No really, there's a water cooler right over there."

"I'm 100% operational! I uh…I have to go now!"

*HIC*

"Uh… _ok_ …but you should really-"

"Bye Jaune, I just wanted to pay you a quick visit to see if you were ok so bye for now because I need to get going!"

Penny hiccupped one last time as she walked away.

Jaune watched her walk away with one raised eyebrow, not entirely knowing what to make of their meeting.

"Jaune…what did she mean by that?" Pyrrha had a questioning look on her face as she narrowed her eyes.

"Uh…nothing really, what're you talking about?" Jaune tried to act as nonchalant as possible while returning to sipping his cup of tea.

"That sounded like something very personal, what happened at the docks Jaune?" Pyrrha asked forcefully, in a tone that said that Jaune was definitely not escaping this one.

 _Oh great, let's see, how do I get out of this one._ Jaune wondered to himself as he looked away for a moment before sighing and turning to face his partner.

"Uh… _friendly fire_." He said.

 _Really Jaune? Really? That's the best you could come up with?_ He chided himself.

"Excuse me?" Pyrrha lifted an eyebrow.

"Uh…she accidentally hit me rather hard during the battle, she wasn't being careful and I ended up in some crates, no biggy, you saw I was fine right?"

 _God I hope this doesn't turn into something else._

"What?!" Pyrrha looked rather indignant, and she immediately turned her head to glare at Penny, however the other girl had already disappeared and was nowhere to be seen. She was in the process of getting up when Jaune quickly grabbed hold of her hand, "Jaune?"

"Let it go Pyrrha, it's all in the past now so let's just move on alright?" He pulled her back down onto the bench gently, the crimson champion looked somewhat torn, but accepted the gesture and sat back down.

"So does anyone have any plans for today?

"Not really, do you anything in mind Jaune?" Pyrrha smiled brightly at him, "We could catch up on our sparring, we haven't been doing that much lately." She said with a light blush on her cheeks.

"We _could_ , but I'm not sure if Vulcan would appreciate that." Jaune replied and Pyrrha flinched.

 _"Girly, I hope you_ _do_ _realize that this kind of alloy combining high-carbon steel blades with match grade rifle parts is_ _bloody difficult_ _and_ _bloody expensive_ _to get a hold of?"_ She had said in one of her visits with Jaune, the sheer amounts of pure, refined, concentrated hatred that the smith could put out towards any hunter-in-training was incredible, Pyrrha most certainly did not want to go through that experience again, but there had to be some way to spend more time with Jaune and get to know him better.

"I know!" She cheered as an idea entered her mind, "We could both just use the old training equipment, that way we won't need to worry about you damaging my sword." She said excitedly.

"That sounds good; do you want to go to the rooftop or the training ground?" He asked.

"I think the rooftop would be best, when do you want to spar? We could start right away if you'd like." Pyrrha's excitement was rising steadily.

 _You're awfully enthusiastic today._ Jaune thought before replying, "Maybe later this evening, I want to check something out this afternoon."

"Oh." Pyrrha's face fell, "What're you doing later? I could go with you." She insisted, trying to recover her plans.

"It's…kinda private actually," Jaune sighed, "My mother was a pilot here at Beacon while my father was training to be a hunter, I want to see if I can find out anything about them and why they left our family." Jaune said as he ground his teeth and clenched his fist tightly.

"Do you want me to go with you?" Pyrrha perked up.

Jaune held up a hand, "It's alright Pyrrha, I need to do this myself," Pyrrha's face fell again and she lowered her gaze rather solemnly. Seeing this, a rather intense feeling of guilt welled up within Jaune, he still had not told her about his little white lie to send her away back home, even though Ren and Nora seemed more or less willing to drop it, it still weighed on his mind, although he never let it stop him from just interacting normally with her.

He reached over to her and gripped her arm tightly and smiled when she looked up at him in surprise, "Look I'll make it up to you alright? You get to thrash my ass for as long as you want as hard as you like later tonight ok? I _promise_ I'll be there." Pyrrha noticeably cheered up after he said this, although her smile was rather weak, and so Jaune sought to try to comfort her a little more.

He reached over to pat her on the back, "An Arc always-" He stopped himself midway and withdrew his hand for a moment, Pyrrha lifted an eyebrow curiously as she watched him furrow his brows and scowl for a moment.

"Jaune?" Jaune shook his head for a moment to clear his thoughts before he smiled and gripped her shoulder tightly.

" _I_ keep my promises." He said as forcefully as he could with the best smile he could manage, unfortunately for him, no one was really buying it, least of all his partner.

"Jaune? What's wrong?" She asked and shifted closer to him with a worried expression on her face.

"It's nothing, I'm fine." He quickly reiterated, the rest of Team JNPR narrowed their eyes and shot rather edgy looks at him, "What?" He responded.

"You're _always fine_ Jaune." Pyrrha sighed.

"You don't express yourself much." Ren agreed.

"C'mon leader!" Nora pouted, "You never talk to us about yourself, let us know somethings!"

Jaune was stumped, they were right of course, he rarely spoke about himself mostly because he never wanted there to be the tiniest hint of his true identity, it was not that he did not trust his own team to keep his secrets for him, but he much preferred their relationships as they were now. He was the leader, he occasionally told them what to do and made sure that they kept up to mark with their own work, but after that he was willing to adopt a completely hands-off attitude towards them, letting them do their own things as far as he was concerned, he was not the sort of person to bother others with silly things anyway.

Evidently, 'their own thing' was now, try-to-get-their-leader-into-a-talking-mood-about-himself.

Jaune remained silent under the withering gaze of all his teammates; well what was he supposed to say anyway? 'Another time guys please?', 'Sorry I've got things I want to do so can we talk about this later?' Neither of those phrases seemed like particularly smart sentences to speak while his team was glaring at him like that, especially not since he was technically weaker than all of them on an individual basis.

"Look guys…" He forced himself to smile; it came out looking rather awkward which did him no favours.

 _Now how am I going to get out of this?_ He wondered.

"Ok…you're right." He surrendered and held his hands in the air, and immediately their expressions changed to ones of bewilderment, "I know I've been a bit of a jerk here and there, so how can I make it up to you guys?"

They were silent.

A drop of sweat ran down Jaune's head in embarrassment.

 _Ah, don't tell me I have to figure out something that we can do to…hang on a minute…_ A lightbulb went off inside Jaune's head.

"Look tomorrow, why don't we all get together in the training room, turn up the difficulty level a few notches, and let's all practice fighting together as a team, I know we haven't been doing that and since the Vytal Festival is coming up and all, it's probably a good time to start practicing." He explained.

"That's a good idea, maybe we can even work together on some combined tactics." Pyrrha nodded.

"Ok so we all set for tomorrow?" Jaune smiled hopefully.

Well at least they looked more encouraged now.

* * *

 **What I really wanted to do was to include a story about Jaune meeting some of his mother's old colleagues in the beacon aircraft hangar with said colleague showing Jaune some old pictures and showing him around. Unfortunately I just couldn't figure out a proper way and I was completely uninspired so I ended up letting this chapter sit around right at that point above with no clear ending. The chapter would otherwise have segued through first with the meeting, then a short spar with Pyrrha before ending with Team JNPR watching a news report on the fight between RWBY and Roman on the highway.**

 **Funnily enough, I did manage to get some inspiration for Grimm types from a surprising source: creepypasta, the forest lurker is essentially a Rake in Grimm form melded with the pack intelligence of Jurassic Park velociraptors. It felt terrifying enough in my head, I gave it a longer entry to emphasize how such a thing could potentially be far deadlier and scarier than the usual big-ass Grimm.**

 **Another surprising source of inspiration: Command and Conquer, the Scrin Eradicator Hexapod is my inspiration for the Reaver, you can easily google images to see what it looks like.**

 **With that done, time for the omake, I was initially a bit lost until I went back and looked at one of my other omakes, and then I remembered a certain scene with Roman near the end of V3, and then everything else fell into place**

* * *

 **Guns of the Torchwick**

Roman grinned as he watched the virus begin its infection of the Atlesian Military's systems, and when it reached a hundred percent, he pressed a button to broadcast on all frequencies, grabbed a mic, took a deep breath, and then…

"THE SYSTEM IS MINE!" He laughed manically into the mic as he threw out one of his arms grandiosely as Neo watched with a placid expression, "Your guns and your weapons are no longer your own!" He hollered as loudly as he could.

On airships all around them, Atlesian soldiers could only watch the criminal with befuddled expressions.

"BEHOLD!" Roman lifted both his arms into the air and paused for dramatic effect.

"GUNS OF THE TORCHWICK."

"BANG!" He slammed a finger down on the fire button, cannons fired, an atlesian airship went down in flames.

"BANG!" Roman grinned as Atlesian robots began turning on their own forces.

"Neo if you would." The diminutive girl hopped over to some controls as Roman cleared his throat and inhaled sharply. He raised his hands to his hip in finger gun mode slowly and…

"RATATATATATATATATATATA!" He went off as Neo started pushing buttons on the console.

* * *

 **In case anyone doesn't have a lick of an idea as to what I'm referencing, search Liquid Ocelot finger guns in youtube.**

 **That scene of Roman happily pushing buttons on the airship like some kid at an arcade somehow made me think of this exact scene from MGS4, I dunno I just felt it was so similar in its atmosphere that I needed to do it.**

 **All your reviews, faves and follows are appreciated.**


	22. Ties that Bind

**Thank goodness I could squeeze this one out just before the month ends.**

 **It's sort of occurred to me that I haven't really done a full length fight scene for a really long time and so I thought with JNPR team bonding, I may as well give it my best shot again.**

 **Do enjoy!**

* * *

Jaune looked up the sign situated right above the rather large building.

 _Hangar No. 1_ it said.

Beacon Academy's air transport hangar where the bullheads and airships that took hunters-in-training to and fro from Beacon to either missions or Vale were housed and maintained.

 _And somewhere in there, maybe something my mother left behind._ Jaune thought as he slowly pushed the door open. Technically speaking, hunters-in-training did not have access to this area, both pilots and hunters were generally kept away from each other for the most part and did not in general see each other. Princess Viola's meeting with then hunter-in-training Jacques Arc had been a complete coincidence.

On the other hand, no one had really stopped him –or perhaps they did not bother to stop the lone hunter-in-training/prince-in-hiding- since he had exited the main Beacon compound and headed on a path to the hangar bay area beside the landing pads. The area was not even fenced off or anything, not even a "WARNING" sign on the ground or anything to suggest that turning back might have been a good idea for the random hunter-in-training passing by the area.

Then again, no one really went out of their way to look for these things.

Unsure of what to do, Jaune knocked on the door out of courtesy, no hearing anything in particular; he pushed it open and entered the hangar. The entire building covered a significant area and housed several bullheads resting idly at the sides with dust covers pulled over them, surprisingly there was no one within the hangar itself, or at least there did not seem to be anyone, the entire area was mostly dead with only the wind occasionally whipping through the main hangar door as noise.

He walked forward uncertainly, head turning side to side as he surveyed his surroundings, his footsteps echoed ever so slightly through the hangar as he walked between a pair of bullheads and out into the middle of the hangar.

It was at this point that a strange, soft and slow melody entered Jaune's ears and seemed to hang in the air, it was slightly distorted and there were a few cracks in the tune, Jaune turned his head towards it and headed in that direction, unsure of what else he could do.

Walking around the last bullhead at the back of the hangar, he came upon a surprising sight.

In the shadow of the bullhead, sitting on a chair with his back to the craft, music coming out of what looked like a rather dated model of scroll on the floor beside him and with a non-descript glass bottle on the other side, a rather thin and bald elderly man with a thick moustache greeted him, the man wore a brown jacket over a white shirt and pants with brown boots,. He appeared to be fast asleep with his eyes closed and his chest rising gently.

His curiosity perked, Jaune cautiously took a step forward.

"Strange." a growling voice stopped Jaune in his tracks, the man's lips had moved so slowly that for a moment Jaune thought it had been someone else entirely and looked behind him expecting anyone else.

A rustle caused Jaune to turn his attention back to the man who now had his eyes open and was looking at Jaune intently.

"Strange." He said again,

"Strange." Jaune repeated.

"Yes, strange."

"What is?" Jaune asked with some trepidation in his voice.

"You are."

"I am?"

"Yes."

"Strange?"

"Yes you are."

"I am strange?"

"Quite."

"I'm Jaune Arc actually."

"No you're not."

"Yes I am."

"You're strange."

"Well so are you."

"Hm." The man's eyes flicked away from Jaune, "Yes, I suppose that would be quite right, yes it would be, quite right indeed."

"That you are strange?"

"Yes indeed."

"…Well you are indeed strange."

"I know."

"…No problem with being strange is there?"

"Well what I meant to say was," He said, finally leaning forward and turning his head to regard Jaune properly, "Strange…" He trailed off, "Because I don't usually get funny hunters-in-training in their uniforms coming over here very often." He groused with a surprisingly deep and guttural tone.

"Well…I guess…?" Jaune replied with a shrug.

"So is there something I can do for you kid? Or are you lost? Or did you come here just to rub your hunter privilege in everyone's faces?" He growled again.

 _Sheesh well someone's a grouchy old man; say doesn't the Armory have that hunter privilege thing as well?_ Jaune grimaced a little.

"My name is Jaune Arc and I-"

"I heard you the first time kid, what'd you want?" He growled again as he picked up his bottle and took a swig from it, Jaune's eye verily twitched.

"My mother used to work here, I was wondering if anyone here knew her."

"Really, and what's yer mama's name anyway?" Another swig of the bottle, Jaune flinched a little.

"Viola." Jaune answered sharply.

The old man's eyes widened in surprise and looked at Jaune with a curious expression; he slowly put the bottle down and put his hands on his knees.

And then he burst out laughing wildly, slapping his thighs and holding his head in his hands as his whole body shook to and fro, Jaune was so taken aback by the reaction that he nearly tumbled to the floor in response but was just barely able to catch himself.

"I should've known it just by looking at you," He grinned widely as he caught himself, "You do look like _he_ does after all."

* * *

 _ **Decades ago,**_

"Well that one hell of a ride gang!" Jacques grinned; his face immediately fell when Pearl shot him a look so dark she would have incinerated him on the spot if she could have willed it.

At the same time, Nero and Rosso ran full speed out and heaved the contents of their stomach onto the nearest patch of empty ground. Both were swearing and cursing wildly and shooting glares at Jacques as they heaved out onto the ground in front of them.

"Oh come on guys it wasn't _that_ bad." Jacques spoke reassuringly just in time for Nero to finally stop heaving momentarily and look up at him.

"I swear to god I'm gonna fucking kill you when I-hurk!" And the dark archer was face down again.

"Oh fuck I think I'm gonna-!" Rosso seemingly agreed and then lurched again.

"Ugh." Jacques grunted disgustedly.

"Well done Jacques." Pearl said flatly, and then she put her hands on her waist and did her best imitation of him, " _I wouldn't mind seeing some of those moves pilot._ Thank you so much for running your mouth off, it was _very appreciated_ as you can see." Her words and tone dripping sarcasm as she walked away with spear in hand, "See you guys when you stop puking up your guts." She waved her hand as she went, patting Nero on the back and leaving her leader with two _very_ airsick people.

Loud laughter broke out from behind them, and Jacques turned to see their pilot holding her sides and shaking her head as she took off her helmet and grinned at them, her hazel brown hair tied into a stiff bun that she patted gently to adjust.

"Bunch of idiots, I wonder how you can handle facing Grimm if you can't even handle a few flying maneuvers." She rolled her eyes as she walked up to them, "Well on the bright side, at least your leader has a stronger stomach." She smirked at Jacques who returned it with an awkward smile.

Nero raised one hand to flip her off while Rosso ignored the remark.

"Hehe, well it was a pretty good show."

"Glad you liked it," She nodded raising one hand to check her watch, "Well good luck with that," She gestured to the two incapacitated hunters-in-training, "I gotta go." She turned and began walking away.

"Hey wait a minute, I didn't catch your name!" Jacques called out "I'm Jacques Arc," Jacques grinned, "Pleased to make your acquaintance," He stretched his hand out.

The pilot shot him a questioning look before nodding and taking his hand gently, "Viola is just fine; it's been a pleasure working with you Mr. Arc."

"Hey Viola!" A voice called out, "Stop horsing around and get on up here!" Someone in the distance near the hangar called out.

"Alright well I guess that's that, I'll be seeing you around Mr. Arc." She nodded and began walking away.

"Jacques is fine!" Jacques called out after her, she waved back in acknowledgement.

* * *

" _He?_ You mean my father?" Jaune asked.

"Who else kiddo? Apparently all those fancy ass flying maneuvers tore his heart right out of his chest and handed it on a silver platter to her." The man nodded "I wasn't the most senior pilot at the time yet, but Viola was one of our best pilots we ever had; she was a complete natural at flying, so much so that we believed her piloting was better than the autopilot on the ships, and that's really saying something." He continued, "She could land smoother, fly faster and turn harder than anyone else I'd ever met, a pity then that she decided to retire away with her new boyfriend." The man took a long gulp of his drink and expelled out his breath with an explosive _Pah!_ Before leaning back onto the chair.

"Huh, is that so…" Jaune cast his eyes downward and pursed his lips.

"I'm Allen Harrison by the way," He stuck out a rather wrinkled and skeletal hand to Jaune, Jaune took it gingerly before letting it fall to his side, he walked around the man so that he could stand in the shade as well.

"So why'd you leave the royal enclaves?" Jaune asked.

"Ha! You could tell?" Allen looked up and smirked at Jaune.

"Only the people of the royal enclaves still have traditional names that aren't color themed." Jaune nodded, "We are after all a bunch of stifling traditionalists." He cocked a smile.

"Which is exactly the reason…" Allen cleared his throat before continuing, "Which is exactly the reason why I left, couldn't take all that tradition and culture bullshit."

"Hah! That's what they all say." Jaune chuckled, "Did you also come here to escape your call-up by any chance?"

"Nah, I served my two years well and good, I just got tired of all the mud and grime and pouring rain while sitting in a trench waiting for a beowolf to take my head off, that really edges the nerves out." Allen sighed, "What about you? You dodge your draft?"

"Hahaha…" Jaune laughed rather nervously, well it seemed at any rate that his mother had not told this old man about herself in any real capacity, "I suppose you could say that to a certain extent, you gonna hate me for it?"

"Ah shit kid, sitting in a trench waiting to die ain't for everyone." Allen chuckled in response.

A moment of silence passed between them.

"You wouldn't happen to have a copy of the _Daily Times_ would you?" Allen asked.

"No." Jaune answered flatly.

"Bloody hell…" Allen sighed.

"Hey Allen you old coot! You around here somewhere?" A voice rang out from the opposite end of the hangar, Jaune's eyes widened in surprise.

"Is that…?" He whisered to himself

"Over here behind the last bullhead!" Allen called out, footsteps echoed out across the hangar before a figure rounded the front of the craft.

"Oh hey Jaune, didn't expect to see you here." Vulcan flashed a wide grin at seeing her favorites hunter-in-training.

"Same to you actually, what happened? Did you get tired of shouting at Ruby and Pyrrha again?" Jaune smirked.

"Naw, I just came here to check up on this old coot here." She leaned on the side of the bullhead so that Allen was in between her and Jaune, "So what're _you_ doing here? I know you like cozying up with the non-combat staff but even _I_ didn't think you'd come all the way over to the bullhead hangars to fraternize."

"Why? What's wrong?" Jaune asked.

"Bullhead pilots are a special breed of arrogance –with regards to everyone else- in their ability to fly their craft; the best ones will never stop reminding you of just how great they are with their babies and how smoothly they can _ride_ them." Vulcan waved her hand dismissively.

"Ah, you're all jealous that you grounders can't get the freedom that we do in the air." Allen beat his fist against his chest and grinned.

"See what I mean?" Vulcan rolled her eyes.

"But anyway what're you doing here Vulcan? I don't see you often outside the forge." Jaune remarked.

"Oh you don't know?" Allen lifted an eyebrow and squinted at Jaune, who shook his head.

"She's from Armorica too." He nodded while Vulcan smirked and Jaune's jaw dropped.

"Wait what?" Jaune was so taken aback that he stumbled back a little, "You never told me that."

"I would've if I thought it made a difference." Vulcan shrugged as she fished a pair of cigarettes out of her pocket; she offered one to Allen, who accepted it with a grunt before helping him light his up and then lighting up her on, taking a long drag and releasing a puff as she leaned against the bullhead.

"Isn't smoking…uh…banned in Beacon?" Jaune asked nervously as he tried his best not to inhale the fumes, both shot him weird looks.

"You plan on doing something about that Jaune-y boy?" Vulcan lifted an eyebrow, Jaune's eyes flicked between the two.

"I guess not…" He murmured quietly

He spent a little more time with the two at the hangar chatting about life in Armorica and where they came from, Jaune of course making sure to keep the…ah… _less relevant_ portions of himself quiet. Unfortunately they were able to wrangle out from him that he used to live in the Armorican Citadel, a place normally reserved only for the Duke and Duchess's family and the more important people in the city.

Despite some jostling with the two –" _Look at the high and mighty noble staring down at the peasants all covered in shit." Vulcan had said_ \- Jaune was able to excuse himself and head to the training ground for his scheduled team bonding session.

His team was ready and waiting when he arrived, all three were looking at him rather intently, it made him a little nervous, sure he was their leader, but he was still uncomfortable being spotlighted like that.

"So what's first leader?" Nora asked as she shouldered Magnhild.

"I've see what you and Pyrrha can do whenever someone gets called up to duel you in combat class, I don't see much of Ren though…so Ren if you would honor me with a duel man-to-man as the only…" Jaune paused, " _two_ males in this circle of friends?" He asked.

"Of course." Ren nodded.

And mere minutes later, they both had their weapons ready and were facing each other across the arena.

Ren flicked stormflower's safety off as Jaune gave Crocea Mors a few practice swings and twirls.

"Ok you two, same rules as usual, whoever gets below 15% aura level first loses the match," Pyrrha nodded to both sides.

"On your mark, 3…2…1…begin!" Pyrrha called out

Ren rushed forward first and dropped to the ground to launch himself and aim a kick right at Jaune's chest, Jaune caught the blow on his shield and slapped it away while bringing his sword up for an upward slash, Ren in turn used the shield as leverage to jump away and give himself space. He brought up both his guns and unleashed a barrage of bullets at his leader, Jaune knelt on the ground and brought his shield up in front of him, the bullets futilely ricocheting off the metal like raindrops.

Ren saw his chance and raced forward, Jaune seemed to sense him doing this and as Ren closed the distance, he twisted his shield to the side and lunged forward with his sword pointed right Ren's chest. The martial artist saw it coming however and immediately did a diving roll to the side past Jaune and raised his fist to strike, the knight retaliated by lashing out with his shield to bash his opponent while jumping away from Ren to put some distance. Both took a breather and watched each other carefully with weapons raised.

" _C'mon Ren_ ," Jaune smirked while giving his sword a twirl, the other boy frowned at this remark.

Jaune moved first lunging forward with his sword; Ren kicked the blade away and used the same leg to launch himself on top of Jaune, who once again brought his shield up on top so now Ren was standing on top of Jaune's shield. Pointing both guns downward, he fired again as Jaune hurled him off the shield, Ren hit the ground on his hands and pushed himself up into the air again firing his guns, forcing Jaune back on the defense.

From the sides both Nora and Pyrrha watched the two go at it.

"Ren's really good in hand-to-hand combat isn't he?" Pyrrha nodded as Ren jumped back to avoid a high slash from Jaune, the two continued dancing around each other, Ren being unable to knock aside Jaune's defense while being too fast for Jaune to catch in turn.

This time Ren aimed a low kick that caught Jaune off guard and sent him falling onto his back, but before he could capitalize on it Jaune lashed out again, this time swinging his sword wildly above him before doing a roll and coming back to his feet with his shield in front of him, just in time to block another barrage of bullets from Ren.

"Yep, he sure is, but Jaune's pretty good too." Nora pointed out as Ren parried another blow and just managed to get one of his guns past Jaune's shield, "He's really good with that sword and shield."

To everyone's surprise, Jaune retaliated by tackling Ren head-on and pushing the other boy away with great force, sending Ren stumbling backwards. Seeing his chance Jaune lunged forward once again, and then to everyone's surprise Ren flicked his other gun upwards with it pointed straight at Jaune, Jaune barely had time to register the movement when…

*CLICK*

Both girl's eyes widened and their eyebrows went up as Jaune and Ren paused for the barest of a moment.

The dawning moment of realization on Ren's face was immediately interrupted by Jaune closing the distance, raising his sword and bashing him with the pommel, but before he could follow up Ren rolled away and was on his feet again, both combatants were breathing heavily and sweating profusely as they regarded each other from a short distance away.

"Not gonna reload that?" Jaune asked with a rather cheesy smile on his face, Ren narrowed his eyes in response.

"I don't know, are you gonna surrender?" Ren fired right back with only a mere pause in between.

"Not on your life," Jaune returned, "I think I can drop this for a moment though." To everyone's surprise, Jaune let his shield fall to the floor and grasped his sword tightly with both hands; Ren frowned as he readied himself again.

This time Jaune made the first move, he raced forward and let loose an upward slash with both hands, Ren blocked with one gun while he positioned the other to make a horizontal slash Jaune's upper chest. Jaune dropped one hand from his sword's handle and gripped the blade to reposition it so that his pommel caught Ren's strike, using all his might he twisted himself and threw Ren to the side. As always however, the able martial artist easily caught himself and was ready with a simple roll.

"Gah!" Jaune suddenly gasped out and withdrew his hand from his blade hissing in pain, a drop of blood slid from his hand onto the floor.

"Jaune!" Pyrrha cried out and leapt off the stands but stopped when Jaune immediately raised his hand.

"I'm ok, its already healing, shit I forgot it could it could do that." He grunted and gingerly gripped his sword's handle with both hands again, "Alright let's finish this." He bit his lower lip and charged full speed at Ren.

Jaune put all of his strength into a massive, upward slash, somewhat worn out from the earlier action; Ren was forced to block the blow with both of his pistols.

The shrill, grinding sound of metal tearing against metal echoed through the room, and when it was done, one of stormflower's blades had been torn off of its gun and now lay on the floor a distance away

"Oh…I forgot it could do that." Jaune sheepishly noted while Ren looked between the broken blade and stormflower, Pyrrha could only sigh in response, remembering all the times when she had to take Milo down to the forge due to Jaune's blade wrecking it in every spar they had.

"I guess we should take a break, I need a drink." Jaune began walking to the stands where Pyrrha and Nora were sitting, "We'll have to see about getting that fixed at the forge." Ren groaned in response but nevertheless collected the broken blade and followed Jaune.

"Were you homeschooled? I recall that you didn't go to a combat school like Signal." Ren asked as they sat down and Pyrrha and Nora handed them water bottles.

"Well, not really, I was taught by one of the Royal Legion's trainers, he was a real hardass." Jaune answered, "How about you? Did you go to combat school?"

Ren shook his head, "There was an old master at our village, and he was the one who taught Nora and me, he was master at using and controlling his aura." Jaune nodded in response as he downed his bottle. Ren meanwhile began examining stormflower, ejecting and inserting fresh cartridges into the guns and making sure to chamber the rounds properly, at least only the blade was broken, otherwise the gun mechanism seemed perfectly fine.

"And of course Pyrrha is self-explanatory, top of her class at Sanctum hm?" Jaune smiled at his partner, who only placed a weak smile on her face in return.

"You know I can't imagine what second place was like in your class." Jaune snorted and tried to make a joke. He stopped when he saw Pyrrha freeze up and the smile vanished from her face, her lip quivered and her eyebrow twitched ever so slightly, a tormented expression filled with anxiety and sorrow on her face.

No one missed this change.

"Uh…Pyrrha?" Jaune asked

"Huh?" Pyrrha seemed to jolt out of her stupor.

"You alright? You spaced out for a moment there." Jaune said.

"It's…it's alright! I was just thinking about something…" She trailed off and turned away, her eyes visibly downcast as she seemed to gaze emptily at the floor between her legs.

 _Bad memories, best not to bring it up._ Jaune thought to himself and decided to clear the air before anymore melancholy filled it.

"Anyway, watching you guys fight, I've been thinking about ideas for how we can fight together more effectively as a team." And immediately that seemed to get everyone's attention, even Pyrrha lost her rather empty look and was now listening rather intently.

"Right, so just hear me out now…" Jaune said and began explaining his plans to his team slowly.

Sometime later, after they had already rested up, all four re-entered the arena to try out when Jaune had been talking about.

"Hopefully we'll be able to use these the next time we get teamfight practice for combat class." Jaune said as he held his shield out in front of him, "Alright well let's get to it then, come on Pyrrha." He banged his sword on his shield.

"Ready?" She braced herself and he nodded, she took off running at full speed, she jumped forward, right onto Jaune's shield. Jaune used her momentum to twist his body and hurl her off his shield as hard as he could, sending her flying through the air at both Nora and Ren, both immediately sidestepped as she impacted the ground right in front of them, did a roll and then came back up with her sword pointing at Ren and her shield at Nora.

"Like that?" Pyrrha asked.

"Not bad, maybe if you tried to land on your shield you could knock someone out."

"So like…an impacting strike?"

"Yeah something like that, it would nice if you were able to take someone out immediately as you land, and then follow up after that."

"Ok…I don't think it will work though, most hunters would have the reflexes to move out of the way."

"No they won't, they'll be completely overwhelmed and too awestruck by the sight of the Mistralian champion coming at them from above to be able to react properly" Jaune nodded sagely, giggles abounded from his team when he said that.

They continued working together, developing their coordination and strategies for countering opponents and launching simultaneous strikes, Jaune giving out his ideas and letting his teammates input their own thoughts and opinions on them. They spent the rest of the day together until it got late and the sun went down.

"Man…I'm bushed…" Jaune said as he sat down with the rest of his teammates and downed the rest of his water canteen, "That felt good though, I feel like we really accomplished something today." He smiled at his team who smiled back.

"Seeing you get plowed into the wall by Magnhild when you tried to get Nora to throw you was pretty hilarious." Ren deadpanned.

"…That was a mistake." Jaune replied, "On a slightly more serious note though…" Jaune took a deep breath and exhaled, "Is there anything you really want to know about me? I know I've been holding out on you guys."

"What's having so many sisters like?" Nora asked almost immediately, both Pyrrha and Ren shot her a look, of all the questions to ask first…

"It's alright guys…" Jaune noticed this and waved it away, "I…it's hard but…you know life goes on…so…" He sighed, "I never really dealt with more than three of them at a time, the eldest is… _technically_ a fully certified huntress even if she doesn't have a license, so she takes odd jobs around Remnant from time to time although she spends most of her time home now. The next eldest spends all her time in Mistral and I haven't seen her since the funeral, her younger twin now runs the family business in lieu of _my parents_." Jaune verily spat the last two words out.

"What sort of business does your sister run?" Pyrrha quickly tried to change the topic.

"Uh… _a law firm_." Jaune quickly said after a short pause, "She does it in conjunction with my uncle on my mother's side."

 _It's not technically wrong; I mean she does write laws on occasion._

"Whoa, so your sister's a lawyer?" Nora's eyes were wide.

"Yeah hehe, anyone want to make an evil lawyer joke?" Jaune chuckled weakly.

Pyrrha shook her head

Ren shrugged

Nora pouted

"What's Armorica like Jaune?" Pyrrha asked again.

"Well it's…kinda dull…rather dark…quite dreary…oh! And it always drizzles." Jaune laughed, "Kind of a crappy place to put a city down but…well we make do." He shrugged, "It's rather old-fashioned and is certainly not a colorful place like Vale, grey tends to be the favorite colour, sometimes brown as well. The city is divided into three main sections; the innermost part is the citadel, followed by the inner city and the outer city, before you ask I live in the citadel." He shrugged.

"So are there like, tall walls and stuff and castles and towers?" Nora asked excitedly.

"Sure, there is an inner wall separating the city and an outer wall running the length of the city, beyond that there are a few scattered farms in the watchful mile, the city is also placed with its back to the sea like Vale is."

" _Cool_." Nora's eyes were sparkling.

"I promise I'll take you all there someday, I don't know if you'd like it or not but I think it's a cool experience at least." Jaune nodded.

They all lapsed into silence for a while.

And then Nora's stomach growled, eliciting smirks and embarrassed smiles from everyone.

"So…anyone up for dinner?" Jaune grinned.

Not too long later, they were in the dining hall since Team RWBY had seemingly disappeared and Ren was a little uncomfortable trying to run the stall as one person without Yang's energy to help him out. They chose to eat in silence with the primary noise being Nora inhaling a whole chicken on her own.

Out of the blue, a sudden ruckus swept through the dining hall, and the Team found their ears being filled with noise."Is it me or has the dining hall just gotten a lot louder?" Jaune asked looking between his teammates.

"What's going on?" Pyrrha looked left and right, watching students all excitedly murmuring and talking amongst themselves, they were all looking at their scrolls and excitedly murmuring and chatting amongst themselves.

"Something interesting must have happened." Ren nodded, "maybe some kind of event?"

"Hey!" Jaune called over to another table, "What's going on?"

"Just look at the livestream on the Beacon forums!" Another student shouted back, Team JNPR exchanged confused glances before Jaune took out his scroll and went to the website in question.

"I didn't even _know_ there was a forum for Beacon." Jaune remarked at he went to the most recent thread and opened the video to begin watching the livestream as the rest of Team JNPR followed suit.

His eyes widened considerably as he watched it, " _Holy shit_." He murmured.

* * *

 _ **Meanwhile,**_

" _Damn_ ," Gravelyn whistled as he watched the fight while keeping an eye on his view count from his vantage point while continuing his livestream of the battle between a team of hunters-in-training and some robot, "I could go places with this."

* * *

 **I like to imagine that if the royal enclaves are a bunch of traditionalists, than they probably don't follow the colour theme naming system as closely as the other kingdoms do, hence more English styled names like the one above**

 **One of the things I tried to do with this was to imagine what an arkos combined attack would have looked like, I mean RT lost a big opportunity to showcase it during the end of the match between BRNZ and JNPR, its a little difficult because how many attacks can you come up with when you _both_ use a sword and shield combo, but I think I just barely made it work, basically Jaune throws Pyrrha right into an enemy team to disorient and "mix them up" so to speak.**

 **Not quite a finisher, I prefer to think it works better as an opening.**

 **As for the omake, I was struck by the memory that Jaune and Felix (from Red vs. Blue, something else from RT) have the same VA, but are basically opposites in personality,**

 **And then...**

* * *

 **PLOT TWIST**

"WEISS! GRENADE!" Jaune shouted as he dashed in between team RWBY and Cinder with his shield in front of him.

"Oh! Right!" Weiss quickly threw her fire dust grenade at Jaune who caught it and...let his hand fall to his side.

"Whoa that was close," Jaune breathed a sigh of relief and smirked as he tossed the grenade in the air and caught it, "Nice throw ice queen."

"Wha...? Jaune?" Weiss stuttered in confusion as the rest of team RWBY stared with wide eyes at JNPR's leader.

"You gotta be more careful." Jaune grinned as he tossed the grenade to Cinder who merely rolled her eyes.

"Are you quite done yet?" She glowered at him.

"Jaune what're you doing?!" Ruby yelled, "That's Cinder right there! She's the enemy! She killed Pyrrha remember?!" Ruby could not believe this, her first friend at Beacon...betraying her?

"Yeah and I'm the cheesy, dorky loser who doesn't know left from right." Jaune sarcastically chuckled and waved his arms about exaggeratedly.

"This doesn't make any sense Jaune! That's Pyrrha's killer right there!" Ruby protested with tears in her eyes, no...this could not be happening.

Jaune's face hardened, "That's true, Pyrrha's death was a shame, she didn't need to die but...she still chose her path. As for me, blood is thicker than water after all, isn't that right sis? Besides, who do you think got me my forged transcripts anyway?" He turned to Cinder who merely sighed.

"Will you just hurry up brother?" She ground her teeth.

" _You fucking traitor!_ " Yang swore angrily.

"No you know what? Playing the loser has been so fucking hard with you idiots and I'm _so done_ with that shit." Jaune fired right back, "I'm so going to enjoy every moment of your pain for every time I was laughed at."

* * *

 **ZOMGPLOTTWEEST! Another way that this could have gone? Jaune activates a tracking device on him that allows Cinder to follow him all the way to the vault with Amber, and then just before the transfer can commence, Jaune suddenly attacks the equipment and ruins it, followed by Cinder nailing Amber with an arrow, Ozpin shouts for Pyrrha to escape to reveal the treachery, and then gets ganked by Maiden Cinder and suddenly-skilled-Jaune.**

 **Pyrrha lives in this case...I think...either that or she tries to confront Jaune and gets killed by Cinder anyway, Jaune's treachery is never revealed as he hides out when Ruby goes all silver saiyan and then rescues Cinder before Qrow can get to them, leaving him free to re-infiltrate the good guys.**

 **Nothing else to really say, I hope you enjoyed and I appreciate all your reviews, faves and follows**


	23. Action Reaction

**Funny thing that came out of RTX, they just portrayed a gorilla-type Grimm there, and here I am having created a gorilla Grimm a few weeks ago in the silverback. In hindsight I suppose it was pretty obvious, I doubt if there are so many varieties of animals dangerous and mystical enough to provide for Grimm types.**

 **If I'm honest, I really wish RT did not miss so many opportunities to explore the world of RWBY more thoroughly and provide some in-depth-ness to Remnant, from how semblances are created (Before Jaune's becomes a Deus Ex Machina, you know its going to), to how dust works (Like seriously, is everything powered by dust or is there some other fuel source?) . I mean the setting is basically Attack on Titan where the base Survey Corps member is Levi and they only get better than that.**

 **The problem for me with this is that generally speaking, its the BEGINNING of a series that sets up the premise and world (And V3C12 was so kindly named "End of the Beginning"), that way it doesn't get in the way of the story down the road and people don't have waste time to expo dump about how the world works, hopefully RT can handle well enough that we don't end up with another plothole of "How is it that Jaune doesn't know about Aura if the Vytal Festival makes it common knowledge?"**

 **Rant over, do enjoy the chapter.**

* * *

"So…" A vein popped in Professor Glynda Goodwitch's forehead as she glared at the quickly shrinking forms of Team RWBY plus Sun and Neptune in front of her. None of them could really bear to stomach looking at her eyes, what was there to say anyway? Ask for afree pass because they just took down a giant freaking robot that was piloted by freaking _Roman Torchwick_?

"Who would like to start explaining just whose _bright idea_ it was to go out in the middle of the night and start a fight with the White Fang that ended up thrashing the highway and caused numerous – _potentially fatal_ \- civilian casualties?" She folded her arms and tapped one finger against her bicep idly.

Not so much as a peep.

"So would anyone like to volunteer an explanation or do I have to start _volunteering_ people for explanations?" One eye visibly twitched.

"Um…well…" Ruby fidgeted nervously as she tried to come up with something.

"Yes Ms. Rose? _Would you like to speak up please_?" Ruby squeaked and went silent as every word hit her like the stolen Atlesian mech they had destroyed not very long ago.

"Professor Goodwitch," Blake interjected, "We knew the White Fang and Roman Torchwick were up to something big, so we felt that we had to do something about it."

"So you felt your best course of action was to take matters into your own hands and attempt to raid a White Fang hideout." Glynda's attention was now focused solely on Blake.

Blake paused for a moment to consider her words, "Yes." She finally answered.

"And why is that if I may ask?"

"Well it doesn't look like _anyone else_ is doing _anything_ about the numerous dust thefts or that Roman Torchwick is now working with the White Fang!" Blake exploded, "The White Fang _are_ planning something and everyone is just going around acting like everything is all fine and dandy! Also-"

"Who says we're acting like everything is all ' _fine and dandy'_ as you so _concisely_ put it?" Glynda hissed out, forcing Blake's rant to a screeching, grinding halt, "Or does Blake Belladonna, huntress-in-training at Beacon Academy think she alone has the capability and the brains to avert a potential crisis?"

"Of course not! But-!"

"But what Ms. Belladonna? If you think you're _so much more_ capable," Glynda leaned forward with a dangerous squint, "Perhaps _I_ should seek an early retirement and let you take over my job and since you _clearly_ seem to feel that you can do a better job than I can."

Blake shut her mouth at that.

"Do not be so self-righteous as to think that just because you're the one with the most visible course of action that others have not been taking notice as well, you have official hunters…the Vale police force…and the faculty here at Beacon themselves." Glynda pointed out, "Or do you honestly believe that you and your team can do more than all of these other people put together?"

Blake shook her head even as she balled her fists and grit her teeth.

* * *

At the same time that Professor Goodwitch was lecturing Team RWBY and their two Mistralian companions, a rather different confrontation was just about to take place in Beacon Headmaster Ozpin's office.

Ozpin's lip quivered ever so slightly as the awaited call from the council was patched through to him, he had just boiled an entire kettle of coffee and had a full cup right in front of him because _boy oh boy_ was he in for one hell of a night if this was going to go where he thought it was going.

The screen flickered to life, "Ozpin." The woman on the holographic screen said flatly, she wore a pair of dark-rimmed spectacles and had short, curly brown hair.

"Good to see you this evening councilwoman Nyla." Ozpin did his best to smile as nicely as he could even as he knew exactly what was coming, "Is there something I can help you with?"

"Shall we dispense with the _bullshit_ headmaster?" Nyla straightened her glasses and sat up straight.

Ozpin did not flinch at the curse, it always seemed to make the otherwise icy councilwoman that much more human and down-to-earth in his opinion, "Of course councilor," He replied.

"So perhaps you could explain to us what exactly a team of huntresses-in-training from Beacon were doing fighting an Atlesian mech in the middle of a crowded highway?" Councilwoman Nyla pressed her palms together and regarded the headmaster of Beacon Academy with a thin smile on her lips that betrayed the barest of a hint of sardonic pleasure at the headmaster's expense.

"Ah yes…funny that you should mention that…" Ozpin started slowly, there were a few ways he could go about this. One would be to take full responsibility for the actions of Team RWBY, this would more or less absolve them of the blame while placing him right in the crosshairs. Two would be to let Team RWBY take the blame for it, which would undoubtedly result in stiff penalties placed on all of them one of which could potentially result in expulsion. Three would be to try to talk his way to a more negotiable arrangement without pointing fingers…

Tough thing to do when scapegoats were currently a fad.

"I suppose if you are bringing this up it would mean that it is apparently remiss of us to place the blame squarely on the man who stole this mech from the Atlesian military and used it to rampage around carelessly?" Ozpin asked with an iota of hope in his voice.

"…Yes it is," Nyla responded after a short pause, "This matter would be far simpler and easier had this "Team RWBY" been successful in their capture of Mr. Torchwick, _or_ if they had been fully qualified huntresses, unfortunately they _are_ _not_ qualified huntresses and they _were not_ successful in apprehending Roman Torchwick, meaning that a great deal of damage was caused with no apparent gain from it and someone now has to answer for the wounded and the dead." She stated flatly before sighing,

"Understand this Ozpin, we are not trying to turn either you or your academy into a scapegoat for this incident, perhaps if the only damage had been limited to a few car accidents or such than we could _more_ easily have blown it over, but unfortunately a mother of two is now in emergency surgery when her car ran off the road, a trucker is lying on a hospital bed with multiple limb fractures, and an old lady is currently recovering from a heart attack…among other things." She explained quaintly, Ozpin lifted an eyebrow but remained silent and let her continue, "So I ask for your kind understanding in this matter." She finished.

"You're saying I should hang out my own students to dry and let the current firestorm consume them?" Ozpin asked as his eyes narrowed dangerously.

"I'm saying that if you have any better ideas on how to handle this situation, we are _all_ ears towards you Ozpin," Nyla replied brusquely. "These _are_ your students after all, unless you would like us to write off everyone else as _'inevitable collateral damage'_."

 _That would be one way of looking at it._ Ozpin looked down at his coffee cup; _After all, casualties are always inevitable no matter how hard we try._

"Look I know that this must be hard for you, it's just as hard for us too, a few days from now the council will vote on a motion on whether or not Team RWBY should be made to attend a hearing on their actions." Nyla said.

Ozpin went white and nearly dropped his coffee cup; there was no way in hell a group of four teenage girls would be prepared for _that_ kind of stress, the only one of them who could be capable of handling that kind of pressure would most like be the heiress Weiss Schnee, the rest of them?

Once they find out Ruby Rose's age –which would be a rather simple thing to do- they would immediately dismiss her as a child.

If they ever found out Yang Xiao Long's rather violent record, there would be hell to pay for her.

And if Blake's past with the White Fang _ever_ came out? Hoo boy, there was a thought he would rather not consider.

As for Sun and Neptune, they both faced potential deportation back to Mistral and a suspension.

"That is insanity!" Ozpin protested, "Be reasonable! You can't possibly expect that a group of teenagers could possibly stand up against that level of scrutiny!"

Nyla grimaced and rubbed her forehead, "That's…true," She slowly forced out, "And unfortunately, a potential end result that must be taken into consideration with their actions, we can't be letting teams of not-actually-qualified-hunters-yet recklessly running around playing vigilante with criminals and terrorists as they see fit, you yourself must understand this."

Ozpin narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips as he considered his options again, "Is there absolutely no way in which Team RWBY can manage to get out of this?" Because if he was not able to figure this one out, well then they were all –not to put it too lightly- _quite screwed_ since it could potentially come back around to bite him in the ass even if he was not personally held responsible.

He could already see the headlines _Is Beacon Headmaster losing control over his own Academy?_ He could feel a chill run across his skin from the thought.

Nyla drummed her fingers against her desk a few times in thought before answering, "I suppose if you could demonstrably show that Team RWBY is not getting off lightly for their actions then it would be easier to justify leaving this in your hands and not…shall we say… _throw them to the wolves."_

Ozpin's eyes lit up momentarily _Has a way out been found?_

"So if I can demonstrate to the public and to the rest of the council at large that Team RWBY will be made to pay for their actions…we could settle this amiably?" He said with a hopeful tone in his voice.

"Ahahahaha," Nyla laughed slowly, dryly and without humor, punctuating every heave, she shook her head lightly from side to side, her bangs flowing with her movements, "No Ozpin, you of all people should know that that is not how this works, the vote will most likely go forward, on the other hand your actions will in all likelihood help to determine whether or not we choose to haul the lot of them in front of us or leave you to settle it as an internal affair."

Ozpin swallowed a hard lump in his throat.

* * *

At the same time as Ozpin had to deal with irate council members, Professor Goodwitch was finally starting to wrap up her tongue lashing of Team RWBY plus Sun and Neptune. It was now rather late into the night and everyone was exhausted, at some point RWBY plus the two Mistralians had more or less given up on listening to the professor and had settled on nodding and fidgeting with their feet and fingers while muttering quietly to themselves.

Something which did not go entirely unnoticed.

Needless to say, in the end Professor Goodwitch realized that no one was getting anywhere any further due to the time of the night and the clear exhaustion on their faces, and so with one last wave of her hand, she dismissed them from her presence.

With the exception of…

"Ruby, Blake and Sun please stay; I need to speak to the three of you for a moment." She said firmly, all three aforementioned students exchanged worried glances, clearly already anticipating what was coming next.

With a shrug, Weiss, Yang and Neptune moved on while the three _unofficial_ bodyguards to a certain prince-in-hiding stuck around to hear the next bout of scolding meant _specifically_ for them and only them.

Professor Goodwitch sighed and rubbed her forehead once Weiss closed the door behind her and searched the faces of the three standing before her.

"Look Professor-" Sun tried to start but was swiftly cutoff.

"I'd have thought that placing the responsibility of watching out for his highness' safety would've helped to rein in any potentially reckless behavior on your part." She narrowed her eyes at the three.

"Professor if I may…" Blake spoke up.

"Yes Ms, Belladonna?"

"Isn't it better for us to proactively scout around and look for where potential trouble may exist first rather than just sit around waiting for something to happen to Jaune?" Blake asked, using his highness' first name, "We can gather intel and avert a potential attack rather than _wait_ for something that we may have no idea about."

"While that is quite true Ms. Belladonna," Glynda said as she straightened her glasses, "It is also true that if _anything_ had happened at all during your period of absence then it would be up to you to provide an explanation directly to the king and queen for why their grandson is currently incapacitated…" She explained.

"But nothing happened!" Blake insisted, "Surely taking action first to pre-empt the enemy is much safer option then willful blindness!"

"And _who exactly_ is the enemy?" Glynda dryly asked.

Blake's eyes widened, surely the professor could not possibly be asking that, "The White Fang! Roman Torchwick! The-"

"All very well and good Ms. Belladonna," Came the sharp reply, "Did you _find any evidence_ as to what the White Fang and Roman Torchwick are planning? Did you recover anything from your infiltration of the White Fang rally?"

"They must be planning something big! You saw they had a prototype Atlesian robot at their disposal! God knows what else they could have!" Blake had to stop herself from throwing her hands up in the air in frustration.

"And _what_ , pray tell, is _something big_?"

"Well…" Blake was out of ideas at that point, she tried to muster something, find something to say from the back of her mind. Unfortunately she found nothing to say to the professor's question, and a muted silence was her only answer to the glowering professor.

"Uh…" Ruby raised her hand slowly.

"Yes Ms. Rose?"

"Isn't that _the point_ of trying to find out professor? What that _something big_ is?" Ruby asked meekly.

 _Thank you Ruby!_ Blake shot her leader a look and breathed a small sigh of relief.

" _Unfortunately_ for you Ms. Rose, one of the reasons we are talking here now is because your little adventure turned up _absolutely nothing_ tangible." Glynda replied, "At the end of the day, all of your efforts accomplished very little except a fight on a highway and numerous civilian casualties which _someone_ now has to answer for." Glynda took a deep breath before continuing.

"While your fervent desire to do good is an admirable trait, your recklessness _is not_ ," Glynda forcibly emphasized the last two words, "you stirred up the hornet's nest, and now for all we know, thanks to you compromising the White Fang's operations so openly, they may even go to ground and disappear to try and recover from your little raid, putting a damper on any future operations being conducted against them by the authorities."

Ruby went silent at that

"Well hey at least we're all alright right teach?" Sun tried to say and immediately realized he _really_ should have just shut his mouth when Glynda turned her gaze on him.

"And if there _had_ been an incident?" Glynda lifted an eyebrow rather menacingly and she glared at the monkey Faunus, "Would you stand in front of the Royal Family to try and explain to them why one of their only sons is laying half-dead in a hospital? Would you dare to try and do that? Especially _after_ they had already lost one of their daughters barely two years ago?"

Blake's lip quivered and she looked down at the floor as Glynda sighed and shook her head for what felt like the umpteenth time that night.

"So…what happens now?" Ruby asked meekly, "To us I mean?"

"Let's hope for nothing," Glynda replied with a heavy heart, "Else I will be the least of the problems you will face."

"Any idea what those problems might be? Or is it something we'd be better off not knowing?" Sun spoke up again.

"Well _you_ and Mr. Vasilias are facing potential deportation…while Ms. Rose's team is facing a potential suspension and barring from attending Beacon or attaining a huntress license…in Vale at least."

Ruby's face fell to the floor…or rather _on_ to the floor with a loud thud.

"Ms. Rose?!" Glynda was so startled that she nearly fell backwards.

"NOOOOO!" Ruby groaned loudly as she put her hands on her head, shaking and curling up into a ball and kicking her legs wildly, "NOOOOO!" She groaned again before suddenly shooting up onto her knees, "Please Professor!" Tears were streaming from her eyes as she reached out and held onto the hand of a rather nervous and slightly frightened Glynda, "I'll do anything you ask of me! Just please!" Ruby released the professor's hands and fell onto her elbows weeping and sobbing pathetically.

"Please don't take away my dream." She whispered quietly as she groveled and reached out to grasp Glynda's leg with both arms and looked up with wide, soulful eyes with lips quivering and body shivering.

"Ms. Rose please," Glynda tried to calm the huntress-in-training even as she tried to pry Ruby's arms from her leg gently, "This is behavior unbecoming of you." She facepalmed before trying to forcibly move Ruby off of her, the girl's grip was iron cast though, and no amount of pulling and prying was able to get the reaper to release her death grip that was slowly cutting the blood circulation to the professor's leg.

Meanwhile, Blake tilted her head to the side quizzically with an unreadable expression on her face as she watched her leader sob and wail incoherently in front of her while Sun merely whistled nonchalantly.

"P-PLEASE PROFESSOR! D-DON'T TAKE AWAY MY *HIC* DREAMS!" Ruby hollered at the top of her voice, both Faunus rubbed their ears and grimaced in pain at the volume.

"Ms. Rose, please release me." Glynda was becoming rather irritated at this point

"Never! Not until you guarantee that I will continue to study here and become a fully qualified and licensed huntress!"

"Ms. Rose," Glynda's tone was rising, "If you do not release me this instant I will remove you _by force if necessary_." She said, ensuring that everyone heard her speak the last part of her sentence with venom in her voice. At that, Ruby seemed to finally realize that she was completely outmatched, and so she slowly and gingerly let go of the professors leg.

"Thank you Ms. Rose now-"

"BWWWAAAAHH!" Ruby cried out as she curled into a ball on the floor again, tears pouring from her eyes in a rather cartoonish manner as she wept pathetically for her lost hope and dreams, "I'm never gonna be a huntress and I'm never gonna be a hero and I'm never gonna be able to save the world and I'm never gonna be anything worthwhile ever!" She wailed loudly and frantically.

For the first time since this mess started, Glynda decided to allow herself to let out a groan rather than sigh again, "Ms. Rose, a decision has not yet been made, I suggest that you pick yourself up and remain hopeful for yourself and your team."

"Y-you mean…" Ruby sniffed and wiped away her tears, "I-I-I won't b-be ex-expelled?" She looked up with wide eyes and a hopeful expression on her face.

"Well…that is not for me to decide-"

"NNNNOOOO!" Ruby screamed again, "I going to be such a disappointment and uncle's going to regret bothering to train me and I'm never going to make my mom proud and Jaune will think I'm such a loser and I'm never going to get to see the royal palace and I'm never gonna meet the king and queen of Vale!"

 _But that last part's completely irrelevant._ Blake noted in her thoughts and she watched her leader get reduced to a weeping mess of tears and snot on the floor. Sun simply stood at one side and tried to appear as nonchalant as possible.

* * *

 _ **Meanwhile,**_

"I wonder what Glynda wanted to talk to the others about…" Weiss said as she, Yang and Neptune walked back to Team RWBY's dorm.

"Probably to tell Ruby off for running around like that and for Sun and Blake to not infiltrate the White Fang, I dunno the professor's usually got a pretty big stick up her ass." Yang shrugged.

"They'll probably be fine snow angel; your leader's a pretty tough cookie." Neptune grinned from ear to ear; Weiss returned the smile a little awkwardly.

"Thanks Neptune, although we _really_ could've used your help and not had you running off to have a snack while we were getting a beating." She rolled her eyes but maintained a good-natured smile.

"Aw come on snow angel, we saw that you had the situation firmly under control so we backed off to let you ladies handle your own thing."

"Well I don't think that sort of thing will get you more ladies if you keep running away like that." Yang laughed.

As they approached their dorm, they bid goodbye to Neptune who headed back to his own dorm in the foreign students section, while walking down the hallway in silence they were surprised to find Team JNPR's door open despite it being rather far past curfew. Both Yang and Weiss poked their head in to find the team lounging about, only Ren appeared to fast sleep while the other three busied themselves, Pyrrha with late-night studying, Nora with her scroll and Jaune with that old brown book he was always reading.

Jaune perked up when he saw the heiress and the brawler and waved at them, "Yang! Weiss! What happened?" He asked, drawing the attention of both Pyrrha and Nora.

"Eh, Professor Goodwitch gave our asses a pretty good chewing." Yang said as she stepped into the dorm and closed the door behind her, she allowed herself to fall onto the floor with her back leaning against Jaune's bed, "But I think we'll be fine." She nodded as Jaune got off his bed and began pouring out from a kettle.

"Tea you two?" He asked, Weiss raised her hand silently and let it fall while Yang merely shook her head, Jaune passed one cup to Weiss who thanked him before he returned to his bed.

"Did you guys see the video that someone posted on the Beacon forums?" Both shook their heads.

"I heard about that, gotta go watch when I can." Yang smirked, "We're gonna be so famous when this is over!" She cheered.

"It's already one of the most popular videos on the Rem-net." Pyrrha chimed in.

"You guys should've told us if you were going to go raid a bunch of crims!" Nora complained loudly, "We would've joined you!"

"Ahehe," Yang scratched her head, "Sorry but we didn't want to involve you guys in anything nasty."

"That said though," Jaune spoke again, "Some people were commenting on you guys being one half of the guys who took down the manticore way back during initiation." He clicked his tongue rather amusedly, "A lot of people were wondering where the other half was at that time."

"I wonder who posted that video anyway?" Weiss pushed out her lower lip and contemplated the idea.

Jaune shrugged, "I guess we'll find out eventually, where are Ruby, Blake and Sun though?"

"They're back with Goodwitch, probably getting an extra chewing out." Yang jerked her thumb in the direction of the corridor.

"I guess it makes sense if you think about it," Weiss sipped form her cup slowly, "After all they were the ones involved in the docks incident, she's probably giving them an extra chewing out over another fight with the White Fang."

 _Weiss is perceptive, no surprise for the heiress I guess._ Jaune thought.

"Well I suppose next time we could support each other, and not run off on your own all willy nilly trying to solve problems." Weiss' expression contorted on hearing that and she slowly put down her cup of tea while Yang barked a short laugh.

"Where have I heard that before?" Her eyes flicked as she rubbed her forehead.

Jaune sighed, " _You_ said it you dunce."

* * *

 _ **Elsewhere,**_

It took a lot more crying, wailing, begging, groveling, offers for anything and indeed, _anyone_ to be done, and potentially a few rather hilariously bad attempts at bribery via baking assorted pastries and what little lien Ruby had on her person at that point in time. But eventually, Glynda was able to send off a tearful Ruby together with Blake and Sun back to their dorms before collapsing in exhaustion on her chair once they had gone; her resolve to continue working as a professor in Beacon nearly drained dry.

"Do you gals _really_ think that was a good idea?" Sun said as they walked back to their dorm.

"Think _what_ was a good idea?" Blake asked sharply.

"Not telling her what we already found out?" Sun responded and twiddled his thumbs, "I mean we _are_ keeping a good bit of information to ourselves here, and she _does_ have a point about this whole thing."

"Well it doesn't look like the professor would've done much about it." Blake snorted and rolled her eyes.

"I dunno you two, maybe we _really_ should just-"

"Oh come off of it already!" Blake snapped at him, "You're the one who wanted to follow us around and not stay back to protect Jaune!" She stopped and turned to regard him, "So what are you complaining about?"

"Guys please!" Ruby's voice echoed out, "Can we just get back to our dorm first?" She pleaded.

"Well you're awfully chipper for having just bawled out about an entire human body's worth of fluid in just under half an hour." Blake noted sarcastically, "You're not even feeling remotely dehydrated?" Blake's eyebrows went up as she said that.

"Eh, you learn to do a few things to get what you want." Ruby pursed her lips and nodded.

They walked in silence the rest of the way.

* * *

 _ **Ozpin's office**_

Ozpin collapsed on his chair, breathing heavily, sweating, utterly exhausted. How on earth councilwoman Nyla was able to maintain such a straight face and expression for so long absolutely boggled his mind, he could pray and hope that she was just as dead as he was, that way there could at least be _some_ retribution for keeping him up all night long arguing back and forth about how legitimate Team RWBY's actions were and how their lack of any official license as well as general inexperience provided any kind of justification for whether or not to let them attend a hearing on their actions.

He lifted his coffee cup to his face and drank from it, he had fought for them of course, no way in hell he would just toss out a bunch of highly-capable teenage girls to face the wolves that they could not simply destroy with their weapons. Unfortunately though, he doubted his word would be enough, surely there had to be another way for him to help them out, perhaps another person who could…

His eyes widened and he slowly put his coffee cup back down on the floor.

 _Yes of course_ , his mind already working, there was just that one person who could help Team RWBY, that one person who happened to be related to another set of people who could probably dig RWBY out if they really needed it. Of course, it was an absolute last resort action; no way would he contact them for any favours that might come back to bite him in the ass sometime down the future, after all, for all he knew the hearing might get shot down and no one would need to do anything drastic at least.

The House of Vale could be rather devious in that regard.

* * *

 **This is me inserting comic book logic into RWBY, obviously the cost of Team RWBY running around playing hero is not as high as the actual Marvel Civil War. On the other hand, I'd think the consequences would have been worse for the quartet of teenage girls, after all instead of actual huntresses they're just a bunch of trainees not even out of their first year in Beacon,**

 **And on the subject of licensing, I can't remember if it was ever stated anywhere that hunters require licenses before they're allowed to kill Grimm, but I like to think that BECAUSE there exist special schools to teach this sort of thing, then there probably MUST be some kind of license given out most likely when a student graduates that authorizes them to perform their duties in the manner that they see fit. I'd like to think having one of these CAN to a limited extent absolve you of collateral damage and civilian casualties, but if you don't have one it just looks like you're trying out pointless and dangerous vigilantism.**

 **I know some will probably argue that none of this makes sense because Roman is a criminal and stuff and we could just dump all the responsibility on him, but its just my view on the matter.**

* * *

 **RWBY Bloopers**

"Are you even listening to me? Is any of this sinking in? What do you have to say for yourself?!" Weiss shouted.

"Ah...ah...AH-CHOO!" Ruby sneezed followed by both jumping backwards in anticipation of the explosion.

...

"Uh...what...?" Weiss said uncertainly.

"Where's the explosion?" Ruby asked as Weiss picked up the canister.

"Hey director!" Weiss called out, "I think this thing doesn't-"

*BANG*

"OW! *bleep**bleep*bleeeeeeeep*bleep*bleep*!" Weiss started cursing and swearing loudly.

* * *

"Pyrrha, this is not the relic! It's not!" Jaune cried out as he was flailed about.

"Jaune! Whatever you do, don't let-"

"WHOA!" Jaune shouted as the animatronic tail suddenly broke off and he fell to the floor, "Mother*bleep**bleep**bleep**bleep*MEEEDDIIICC!"

"Hey uh...I think he needs help!" Pyrrha called out.

* * *

"Oz, you and I both know why I brought those men." General Ironwood stated.

"Yes we do," Ozpin took a drink from his cup, "It's because your _Ironwood_ needs flexing doesn't it?"

...

"Was that in the script?"

"No I just..." And then Ozpin broke out giggling, "hehe, I'm sorry it's just...hahaha... _Ironwood._ " And then he broke down laughing.

* * *

"Penny..." Ruby whispered as she fell to her knees and cried.

"NOOOOOOO! Now who's going to be my robot buddy in Volume 4!"

* * *

"Do you believe in destiny?" Pyrrha asked.

"...Yes." Cinder answered as she released the bowstring and let the arrow fly...

Right over Pyrrha's head, Pyrrha's head turned to follow the arrow as it landed a short distance away, she turned back to a stunned Cinder.

" _Good shot Cinder._ " She deadpanned.

* * *

 **#ifrwbywasaaliveactionfilm**

 **A side note, if anyone wants to try and develop any of the omakes, feel free to do so just drop me a PM first or something, because I would love to turn this one into a proper full length crack fic but I just don't have the time to.**

 **I hope you enjoyed the omake.**

 **I look forward to your reviews, faves and follows!**


	24. Consequence

**Sheesh, I got another late chapter out, although this one is a fair bit longer than usual.**

 **I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

 _The council of Vale will gather in parliament just a few short hours from now to vote on a motion, which will call for the team of huntresses-in-training from Beacon Academy to attend a hearing on their actions related to last night's disastrous incident on highway 42 wherein the infamous criminal Roman Torchwick -who is believed to have been involved in the recent spate of dust thefts- fought the team with what appeared to have been a model of Atlesian robots, the action left a large pile up of vehicles on the highway, closing the highway until debris can be removed._

Jaune swallowed a lump in his throat as he watched the camera pan over the destruction on the highway.

 _So far there has been a lack of information coming out from Beacon Academy as to the identity of the huntresses involved in this incident, questions are beginning to emerge as to whether or not the aforementioned huntresses could have done more to lessen the damage done not just to the infrastructure but also to the multiple civilian casualties that resulted from the battle._

More scenes of carnage,

Ambulances running to and fro,

Blood on the road,

A crying child being comforted by a paramedic,

"We're just trying to uh, just calm down and chill you know? I mean, we were lucky that we were futher back so it wasn't so bad so erm…yeah we're just trying to take it easy now," A man said as he held a woman close to him who was shivering.

 _Unfortunately, we still have no official confirmation from Beacon Academy as to whether or not the huntresses were merely conducting one of the many officially sanctioned missions given out daily or if they had gone rogue and were operating on their own. Although we still have no word from the Academy, many rumors believe that the latter might be a more plausible answer owing to a lack of history for huntsmen –in particular trainee huntsmen- to be used in a law enforcement role._

Images of Ozpin, Beacon Academy,

The camera shifted to parliament,

" _What I think is on the minds of…uh…all the councilmen, together with me today and indeed the minds of all the families affected by this tragedy. Could. This. Have. Been. Avoided? And I think that we need to get some answers, and we need to get those answers fast."_ One councilman said.

" _I would like to question what Beacon is doing…letting these…as far as I can tell…_ untrained and unprepared _…huntresses…out and about trying to play vigilantes, I would like…and I think I speak for all of us…some_ genuine reassurance _…from the Beacon headmaster that he…uh…has his Academy and his students under control."_ Another councilman said.

 _Atlesian military officials have yet to respond to questions regarding the appearance of such a highly classified and secretive piece of military equipment in the hands of a wanted criminal. Our sources however, say that the robot was most likely a prototype that was recently stolen on its way to Vale from Atlas for further testing. Its presence in Roman Torchwick's hands has caused many to question the effectiveness of the Atlesian military's presence and doubts are beginning to emerge as to whether the Atlesian military is truly prepared for their role as peacekeepers during the Vytal Festival later this year._

" _What I wanna know is…is what a criminal like Roman Torchwick is doing…handling…such a dangerous piece of military equipment?!"_ A councilman shouted, _"We brought you over so that you could provide security and help us out…and we just find out now that…you know…some criminal has an advanced military prototype that comes straight from your own science department?"_

" _How can we be so sure you're not the ones secretly trying to undermine our own authority? We're placing our safety in your hands."_

Jaune supported his head with one hand propping his chin up as the live news report continued to roll on while both Team RWBY and JNPR picked at their food in silence, around them the dining hall was a buzz with students talking excitedly about the recent events.

 _Tensions are high in the city as citizens and local authorities alike question the actions of the huntresses and the Atlesian military, for now no one is sure where the blame will end up falling as both Atlas and Beacon have declined to comment on their respective roles in the incident and are remaining silent for the time being. The identities of the huntresses involved in the incident have so far remained unreleased, although speculation suggests that they include a few of the same trainees famously involved in taking down a manticore during the annual initiation earlier this year._

 _In other news…_

"Will you turn that _goddamn_ _shit_ off?" Yang growled out as she glared at Jaune from the other side of the table, Jaune eyed her out of the corner of his eye, and with a further furrowing of Yang's brow, wordlessly turned the volume level down so that it was a bare murmur to Yang's ears. Not entirely satisfied with this Yang raised her head from where it had been on the table to look at Jaune with her eyes beginning to glow red.

"I said _turn_ that shit off!" She demanded and slammed her fist down on the table, rocking it and nearly causing a cup of water to be spilled, Jaune arched one eyebrow before turning to the rest of his team.

"I think we'd better get out of here before Yang…" He drew a line across his neck with one finger, "Rips my head off and beats me to death with it." He gurgled as he said it and made to stand up as the other three members of his team exchanged worried glances.

"Yang!" Ruby cried out indignantly and shot a dark look at her sister, "Jaune no! You can stay here, _calm down Yang_." Jaune slowly sat back down but kept an eye on the rather agitated Yang who was trying to force her anger down.

"Look I know we're all probably more than a little upset at what's going on, but let's at least keep abreast of what's going on in Vale alright?" Jaune said as firmly as he could, not really wanting to be on the receiving end of the blonde brawler's anger.

"I know it's just…" Yang ground her teeth and took several deep breaths to calm down, "We probably just blew up the White Fang's plans in their face and now this shit's happening to us? Like can I at least get a thank you note or something for the effort we put in?"

"You did cause a pretty big pile up," Jaune pointed out, "And more than a few civilian casualties in the process, you can't expect people to _not_ notice that." Yang shot him a look but seemed to accept his words; instead choosing to support her head on one of her hands and shoot another glare at some students who were looking over to their table with curious and questioning looks.

The students quickly turned away on seeing Yang.

At the same time, Jaune noticed that even though there was a tuna sandwich sitting right in front of her, Blake was not eating it, and seemed content to stare at it –or perhaps more rightly, _through it-_ with a rather somber expression on her face, she kept her head low and did not seem to be responding to anything or anyone around the table. She was not even holding on to her usual selection of smutty literature.

"Blake." Jaune called out from across the table, causing the resident ninja catgirl to perk up all of a sudden at the mention of her name, her face flicked to Jaune as the table turned its attention to her.

"Are you alright?" Jaune asked, Blake's mouth opened ever so slightly, as if she wanted to say something. But then she shut it tight and frowned rather deeply, to everyone's surprise she stood up silently and straightened her skirt.

"Blake?" Now Yang was looking worried.

"I'll be in the dorm if anyone needs me." Blake flatly replied and walked off without another word.

"Shit, keep going you guys, I'll go after her." Yang said as she got off and quickly followed Blake out of the dining hall.

"What's happened to her?" Jaune asked Ruby.

Ruby could only give a rather shameful look, "she must blame herself for dragging _everyone_ into this."

"This was a big mistake…" Weiss sighed and put her head on the table, "Now we're _all_ in for it…maybe we _really_ should've just left well enough alone."

With that said, silence reigned once again.

"On the bright side," Jaune spoke up, "At least we're all in this together right?"

* * *

 _ **Earlier in the day,**_

Professor Glynda Goodwitch paced back and forth worriedly about in her office; she had just received some rather...worrying news about the incident and the future of Team RWBY. It only compounded her workload and fears since now a second team of students was potentially about to get dragged into the mess purely due to their close association with the errant team of trainee huntresses.

A knock on her office door drew her attention to it.

"Professor Goodwitch? Did you call for us?" Jaune Arc, leader of Team JNPR and Prince of Armorica currently doing his best to hideout in Beacon.

"Yes, do come in." Glynda called out, the door slowly unlatched and the team trooped into the office slowly and stood side by side. Now Glynda would never admit it but she was sometimes thankful for the presence of Team JNPR, they were a lot more 'normal' in a sense compared to Team RWBY –which their association together somewhat strange at times- and a lot less given towards silly antics. It was probably thanks to not only having a prince around to keep the peace, but that there was really only one really excitable member of the team while the other two were generally quiet, demure and less inclined towards independently acting on their own.

On the other hand, two of three of his highness' guards were from Team RWBY, so it made a lot more sense in that respect.

"So what do you need professor?" Jaune asked.

"I need to deliver a warning to the four of you." Glynda said tiredly as she sat down behind her desk, all four were immediately rather tense, "I assume you already know about the mess that Team RWBY is involved in?"

"Well…" Jaune scratched his head and looked at the rest of his team, "Yes and no professor."

"Yes and no?" Glynda lifted an eyebrow.

"Yes because we know what they did…" Jaune started, "No because we don't know the extent of it."

"Well I'm about to tell you part of the extent of it, so listen up well." Glynda scratched her nose and took a deep breath, "The council will put to the vote later today on whether or not to call Team RWBY for a hearing on their recent actions."

Jaune's eyes went wide,

A short gasp from Pyrrha,

Ren frowned,

Even Nora looked rather serious,

 _Well at least they're listening,_ Glynda thought for a moment before continuing, "And seeing as your close association to them will no doubt be discovered soon through…I assume _you know what_ , I felt it was proper to inform you that you may be called up as a witness during the hearing to provide insight for the council into Team RWBY."

Jaws hit the floor when she said that, if they were not listening then they most certainly were listening now.

"Professor…you're saying we might have to… _rat_ on our friends?" Jaune asked timidly while fidgeting.

"Not strictly in a manner of speaking Mr. Arc…" Glynda said slowly, "But yes, you might have to… _inform_ on your friends to the council subcommittee if they start asking for it." She nodded.

Team JNPR exchanged all sorts of worried and confused glances, clearly not entirely sure what to make of this most recent development, before any of them could open their mouths to give a comment or opinion on their situation, Glynda started talking again.

"Please do not panic, we still have little idea as to whether or not the hearing might actually go through," Glynda said, "Although I suppose by the looks of things, it may as well be already confirmed."

"What do you suggest we do?" Pyrrha asked nervously as she bit her lip.

"Same thing everyone is going to do," Was the answer, "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, that's all I can tell you for now."

The air was tense as Team JNPR considered the news.

Glynda adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose, "I understand that this must be hard on all of you," _It's pretty hard on us too,_ "With all that said and done it would be wise for you to prepare yourselves mentally for this, there is no real telling what you might encounter should you actually be called up to give a statement, so be prepared for anything."

"We'll do our best Professor," Jaune nodded, "Is there anything else for us?"

"No, that's all, you may all go now."

"…Thanks professor." They exchanged one last nod before Team JNPR slowly exited the office

When they all got out, Jaune leaned on the all opposite the office and stuffed his hands into his pockets, looking down at the floor, the rest of Team JNPR formed around him, uncertain of what was going to happen. Jaune slowly slid down the wall until he was sitting on his heels, giving a great sigh with one hand rubbing his forehead.

"So…what now?" Nora asked as she tapped her foot idly.

"This is really big and serious; we have to start preparing ourselves for the possibility of this hearing." Ren said.

"Perhaps it would be wise to alert Team RWBY about this development; maybe we can coordinate some kind of effort." Pyrrha nodded along.

Jaune let out large gasp of air and ran his hands through his hair, "I never imagined that I'd have to deal with _this shit_ over here." He gripped his head and messed with his own hair, "Ugh, I don't suppose any of you have ever been hauled before a council hearing have you?" he sarcastically asked.

They all shook their heads.

"Well we better-" He was interrupted when the door to the office opened and Glynda poked her head out.

"I forgot to tell you this, but the headmaster would like to see both you and Team RWBY in his office now." She said.

"…Yes professor." That was all Jaune could respond with, Glynda nodded in acknowledgement before shutting the door, "Let's sort this out with the headmaster and RWBY before we start getting ahead of ourselves." The others nodded and fell in line behind him as they walked together to the tower.

They mostly walked in silence, each contemplating their possible role in all of this; Jaune was despairing at having to tell his uncle that he –nominally a prince-in-hiding- had gotten caught up in the politics of Vale, Pyrrha was considering how her own status as the champion of Mistral was going to affect the outcome of the hearing, Ren was hoping that the whole thing would blow over quietly without any incident because he was kind of worried about what might happen if Nora went into the hearing.

Speaking of which…

"What do you think the hearing's gonna be like?" Nora asked out loud.

"We're only witnesses, I don't think we'll be asked to do anything major, right Jaune?" Pyrrha looked to her crush for agreement.

Jaune shrugged in response, "Beats me, we'd better- oh hey!" He gestured in surprise, "Hey gals!" He called out to Team RWBY just in front of him, they all turned to look at him.

"Hey Jaune! Going to see Ozzy too?" Yang cocked a big grin.

"Yep." Jaune's eyebrows jumped as he looked at Blake, "What's she so happy about?"

Blake rolled her eyes and put her hands on her waist, "She thinks we're going to get a reward for last night."

Team JNPR exchanged worried looks, so Team RWBY did not yet know just how deep in all of them were in for last night.

"Sure." Ren nodded with gritted teeth.

"Something wrong?" Weiss called out, noticing the looks.

"You ah…you haven't heard?" Jaune grimaced.

"Heard what?" Ruby chimed in.

"The…council…is due…to vote on…whether or not…to make you attend a…hearing for your actions." He said slowly, looking at their faces, his words had clearly sunk in.

Ruby's eyes were wide with shock

Weiss's jaw had hit the floor

Blake was looking paler by the second

Yang face had fallen flat from its prior optimism

"Wha...bu…but…Ms. Goodwitch…?" Ruby stuttered out.

"I'm doomed." Weiss stated firmly.

Blake remained silent.

"How on Remnant…?" Yang looked completely flabbergasted

It would all be so incredibly hilarious if it was not also an incredibly important matter.

"But…but I thought…?!" Ruby hollered incoherently.

"I'm doomed." Weiss stated again.

Silence from the ninja cat Faunus

"What the fuck did I do?!" Yang yelled at no one in particular.

"Look gals-" Jaune started but was swiftly interrupted.

"I thought Professor Goodwitch said it was under control?!" Ruby started crying uncontrollably.

"I'm doomed." Weiss turned and looked away sullenly.

"Ruby it's just going to the vote it hasn't been confirmed yet." Blake finally spoke up.

"What the fuck did I do to deserve this?!" Yang was shouting madly.

"So…Ozpin." Jaune jerked his thumb off down the hallway.

"What's up gang?" A certain monkey Faunus chose that exact moment to appear alongside his blunette partner.

"Going to see Ozpin too?" Jaune asked.

"Yep, wonder what he wants though."

"Hey snow angel, how're you doing today?" Neptune tried to flirt with Weiss, who only looked at him with an empty expression.

"I'm doomed." She answered.

"Uh…ok…?" Neptune said as he backed away slowly.

"WHY PROFESSOR?! WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN US SO?!"

"Ruby calm down!"

"Why am I always the one getting shit from everyone else?!"

"I'm doomed."

"OK WILL EVERYONE CALM THE FUCK DOWN RIGHT! NOW!" Jaune screamed at the top of his voice above the din, somehow managing to be loud enough to drown out even the tear and snot flowing Ruby.

Everyone immediately shut up and all eyes were on him, silence reigned for a moment as Jaune took a deep breath and calmed himself.

"Ok, now-"

*HIC* went Ruby.

Jaune squeezed his eyes shut and inhaled sharply.

 _Inhale, count to ten, exhale, count to ten, inhale, count to ten, exhale_. He followed along in his thoughts.

"Jaune, we should get going." Pyrrha tapped his shoulder encouragingly.

Jaune gave her a thankful smile, "Alright, why don't we save the complaining for later and get moving on to the headmaster?" He rubbed his forehead; he could feel a headache was coming on…and maybe a sore throat too.

A few minutes later they exited the elevator in silence and marched up to the doors, with a look of resignation written all over his face, Jaune raised a hand to knock on the door.

"You cannot be serious!" A recognizable voice came out of the room rather loudly.

Some murmuring ensued.

"Don't you think this is a little too far?" The headmaster continued.

The murmuring became excitable, something in Jaune made him lower his hand and instead, with his curiosity piqued, he pressed his ear to the door as hard as he could, right in front of his face, Yang suddenly chose to join him, facing him with her own ear to the door.

"What're they saying?" She whispered.

"Shh!" Jaune quickly shushed her with a finger at his lips, behind him he was joined by Nora and then Ruby.

"It will go on with or without you Ozpin." A female voice flatly said.

"This is ridiculous, the negativity surrounding the incident may be high but there's no need for such drastic actions!" Ozpin protested.

"Uh…guys I don't think you should do that…" Pyrrha tried to speak up but was simultaneously shushed by all four standing at the door, dejectedly she turned to Blake, who only gave her a blank look in response, she then turned to Weiss, who had the most defeated expression on her face.

"Headmaster Ozpin." And the four listening in could almost feel Ozpin go tense and quiet at that voice, "We are initiating the blackout protocol tonight, I suggest you see to it if you want to continue being a headmaster at Beacon academy, and that is all."

 _What is that?_ Yang mouthed silently, Jaune shook his head and shrugged.

They could hear Ozpin sigh loudly and grinding sounds like a chair being pulled along the floor could be heard.

"Teams RWBY and JNPR may enter." He called out.

Startled by the command, all four shot away from the door at the same time, surprised that they had apparently been found out so easily, a beep sounded and a red light appeared at the side of the door on a metal panel.

"I said you may enter, and yes I did know that you were out there the whole time." His voice dryly came through over the intercom.

"Ahehe," Jaune chuckled nervously, "Well what're we waiting for?" He pushed the doors open slowly to find a rather tired looking Ozpin sitting at his desk, drinking from his coffee mug as per usual, he had rather large and dark bags under his eyes and a haunted look on his face as he the two teams and their two companions filed into the office slowly.

"You called for us Headmaster?" Jaune tried to start the conversation.

"I suppose you lot already know what's going to happen?" He said slowly as she gazed at his coffee cup.

"Yeah," Yang spoke up before anyone could, "And I'd like to know why the hell I'm going to court for stopping a criminal."

"Yang!" Ruby hissed out as Ozpin narrowed his eyes at the blonde brawler, who was beginning to wish the floor could just open up and swallow her whole as the headmaster looked straight at her and the others vacated the area around her.

"That's because, Ms. Xiao Long," Ozpin said slowly and deliberately as he sat up straighter in his chair, "In the course of your battle did you notice anything at all?"

"Uh… _anything…_ headmaster?" Yang said meekly.

"Yes, perhaps…" Ozpin trailed off, "Perhaps a few cars that may have been wrecked, or a highway that might have been ruined? That sort of thing Ms. Xiao Long?"

"Ah, ahehehe…uhm-"

"I _politely request_ that you stop laughing at once Ms. Xiao Long."

Yang's mouth immediately closed and she remained tight-lipped.

"Now back to more…proper business, am I right to assume that you all know what might potentially happen to Team RWBY soon?" He queried.

"Only a potential hearing in front of a council subcommittee," Jaune answered for everyone, "And that my team might have to…partake as witnesses."

"Witnesses headmaster?" Blake looked at them, "Witnesses to what?"

"Your habits duh." Nora stuck her tongue out.

"Nora…" Ren tried to rein in the hammer maiden.

" _What_ habits?" Ruby scratched her head.

"My family's name will be dragged into the ground at this rate," Weiss sighed, "I should just leave Vale before the hearing starts."

"Oh great, here comes Weiss and the Schnee Dust Brigade." Yang made a shooing motion with her hand.

"You're just a lowly commoner," Weiss scoffed sadly; "You wouldn't understand the pain I'd have to go through."

"Guys…" Jaune turned to the group,

"It's ok snow angel," Neptune winked at her slyly, "You can come and stay with me if you'd like."

"Thanks Neptune, I appreciate it."

"ENOUGH!" Ozpin roared.

Everyone quieted down and faced him again, Ozpin sat back down in his seat and resisted the urge to slam his face into the desk in front of him and cry and sob in front of so many of his students as well as two other foreign students. Sure he was the headmaster of Beacon Academy, but even he had its limits, especially when it came to dealing with a whole bunch of unruly and moody teenagers each of whom seemed to have something to express about their current situation.

Well technically it was their own fault, it was all their faults anyway, no one asked Team RWBY to go hunt for Roman Torchwick, no one asked Sun and Neptune to tag along, no one asked for a fight with a prototype military robot on a highway on which innocent civilians were traveling on, and _no one_ asked for the resulting multiple casualties that resulted from the fight and the council taking action on it.

And as for Team JNPR, it was their fault for associating with Team RWBY. Ok well technically they had nothing to do with any of the current bullshit happening, but oh well bad luck, their loss. His highnesses own fault for befriending Ruby on pre-initiation day.

Ozpin settled into his seat and closed his eyes for a moment to slow his breath and calm himself; he had seen the prince do it a few times before, he may as well try it on his own.

Surprisingly enough it worked, and while everyone remained silent, he finally sat forward with a thin smile on his face.

"Now that we have all quietened down a bit, I think we should get down to business," He cleared his throat, "First of all, the vote will be taking place later today or _possibly tomorrow_ depending on whether they have the time for it, now if the vote _does not go through_ ," He eyed them slowly, watching their reactions, "Then you're all clear although I cannot guarantee what might happen or if there might be protests launched depending on public opinion, _on the other hand_ if the vote does go through then…" He paused and took a deep breath.

"Then a few days after, a select subcommittee of council members will be formed to investigate your actions of that night, after that you will have to attend a hearing together with this subcommittee where they will judge if your actions were justified or if they fall under the provisions of the Rogue Hunters Act…or perhaps some other act that they'll try to think off, and then you will be charged accordingly whether that be jail time or a stiff fine or community service or whatever else they think appropriate."

He could some of them wanted to say something, and so he quickly put his hand up to stop them.

" _Let me finish_ ," He stated, surprising himself with how calm he was, "As for Team JNPR," He now faced a rather tense Jaune, he was trembling ever so slightly and clenching both his fists, "There may come a time when you may be called upon to…" Ozpin wracked his head for a moment to find the right word, " _Provide_ _insight_ into the actions and behavior of Team RWBY, what this means is that you will have to questions like 'have you ever encountered incidents where Ms. Xiao Long has acted with considerable violence?'."

Yang visibly flinched at that.

"Or 'in your interactions with Ms. Rose, has she ever shown a disregard for authority?'."

Ruby bit her lower lip on hearing that.

"What seriously complicates this is the presence of Ms. Nikos, who will likely be pushed even harder considering that she's expected to uphold her…status."

Pyrrha swallowed a lump in her throat.

"As well as the presence of Ms. Schnee, who I doubt needs be mentioned."

Weiss dropped her face, looking down at the floor, her bangs covering her eyes.

"None of this will be helped by the fact that they will have full access to your files and any and all records and data on you," A wave of tension swept through the air as a chill ran up the spines of everyone present, eyebrows twitched, fingers and feet fidgeted uncomfortably and droplets of sweat ran down foreheads and cheeks as the new revelation hit the hunters-in-training.

"I don't think," He looked from one to the next and to the other, "That I need to mention the danger and the damage that these records are going to do some of you."

"P-professor…" Blake stepped forward, "Does this mean...?" She let the question hang in the air, everyone already knew what it was going to be, all that was left was for the headmaster to confirm it.

" _Thankfully_ ," Ozpin straightened his glasses and clasped his hands as a small smile crossed his lips, "there's some good news there, that isn't on record anywhere in our systems so I doubt it will be on record in theirs. _Unfortunately…_ " There was a small sigh of relief from the Faunus as he turned back to Yang and fixated on her intensely as he brought his hands up to his face with his elbows resting on the desk; she shivered slightly, already anticipating what was coming.

"The same cannot be said for Ms. Xiao Long, her… _record of violence_ puts a black mark on her," Ozpin put his hands down and drummed his fingers on the desk in front of him, "I can only say that you can expect to be grilled down to the wire." A small gasp came out of Ruby and she threw a look at Yang.

"I can take a little heat." Yang said with as much confidence as she could manage to throw together, although everyone could tell that considering her voice cracked a little at the end, it did not inspire much confidence in anyone else.

"This isn't a sparring match with fellow students Ms. Xiao Long." Ozpin corrected her, "Any display of brute strength will only make your situation –and by extension, your team's situation- worse."

"Professor," This time it was Pyrrha's turn to speak, "Isn't there anything you can do?"

Ozpin shook his head and sighed, "The situation is such that the council wishes to assume full control, meaning that it's now completely out of my hands and I doubt if anything I do now will be able to affect the outcome of the vote, the only thing I can tell you to do now is to pray hard and to hope for the best…but invariably…" He wriggled his fingers, "Plan for the worst. I've done the best I can to help each and every one of you for this, the only thing left is to mentally prepare yourselves and help each other out."

They all exchanged nervous and tired glances at each other, mentally prepare themselves to be grilled by a bunch of adults on their actions?

It was every teenager's worst nightmare possible.

"And now we come to the Mr. Wukong and Mr. Vasilias." He now regarded the two Mistralian students, both of which had up until now, been trying to stay mostly out of sight and out of mind, and now the attention was focused squarely on them.

"I don't know if either or both of you will be called as either witnesses or otherwise," Ozpin's eyes flicked between the two as he rested his chin on his hands, "Regardless of all that though, both of you face potential deportation if the subcommittee feels that your actions were basically aiding and abetting Team RWBY."

"Deportation? But I just got here!" Neptune insisted.

"Well perhaps a bit more of consideration on the part of you and Mr. Wukong before acting would have been a little more prudent don't you think?" Ozpin narrowed his eyes. Meanwhile Sun lifted one of his arms from where they were crossed over his chest and pressed his face into it mumbling something that sounded like 'I knew this was going to be a bad idea'.

"That is all I have to say, you are all dismissed." There were some acknowledgements here and there, but otherwise no one looked to be in the mood for anything more.

Well except…there was just one last thing for Ozpin to clear up.

" ." Jaune turned to look at the headmaster, "I would like to see you in private please."

"Of course headmaster." He nodded before turning to his team, "Go with the others first, I'll just be a moment." He flashed a cheesy smile to try and reassure the rather lost looking Pyrrha, still trying to recover and process all of the new information that she had just learned with in the last few minutes. In that respect she could only return the smile, raising one hand to grab Jaune's arm and squeeze it before turning and following the others away.

A moment of silence passed between the headmaster and the prince as they waited for the others to leave before they spoke.

"Is my identity at risk?" Jaune timidly asked.

"…Yes." Ozpin gave a tired sigh.

More silence.

"Should I…uh…take a leave of absence or something?" Jaune asked again, stating the rather simple solution that he could take to get out of it.

"You _could_ , but are you willing to leave your friends behind to face their fate?" And there was the question that completely deflated Jaune's otherwise rather simple solution. Jaune cast his eyes downward to the floor. Thoughts of all of them trying to face a panel of inquisitive and mudslinging adults swirled through his mind, images of Ruby breaking down from the stress, Weiss stuttering and stammering in fear, Blake going completely quiet and accepting everything, Yang desperately wrestling her own anger under control.

And then there was his partner Pyrrha, doubtless she would be able to breeze through, or maybe her celebrity status would give them even more reason to put her through the grinder, and how much could he count on Ren or Nora to be able to handle it on their own? Ren was certainly mature enough, and Nora had incredible moments of clarity of thought and insight, but against a whole group of adults?

"No…I won't." Jaune stated firmly.

"…So what will you do?" Ozipn leaned back into his seat with his coffee cup on his chest as he regarded.

"How would they be able to find out about me?"

"A thorough background check would be performed, while the royal family is not necessarily the most public family in the world, once the link to Armorica is made, it won't be very long before they in turn request your records from your own home, and any stalling on your family's own part would only be suspicious."

"So…what should I do?"

"Contact your uncle and your sister, alert them to your situation, hm…" Ozpin suddenly looked rather thoughtful, Jaune kept quiet.

"I don't suppose we could get the Crown Prince to speak on Team RWBY's behalf?" Ozpin muttered half-jokingly.

Now that was an interesting thought, perhaps if he spoke out against the trial and supported the team against the council they stood a chance of getting out without too much damage being incurred on either side, after all the Royal Family still wielded a sizable amount of influence for a bunch of figureheads and they _did_ still pretty much run their own little region. On the other hand though…

"No offense headmaster, but wouldn't that just be interfering? I don't think the council would appreciate that." Jaune shrugged.

"I suppose you're right," Ozpin sat up straight and nodded, "I guess it's time for you to go now, do remember to contact your family."

"I will, thank you headmaster." Jaune returned the nod and took his leave.

* * *

Jaune sighed as he continue to read and watch news articles, videos and comments condemning and criticizing the team for their actions that night, and just when he tapped a button to flip a page, he found that the page would not load.

"That's weird." Jaune lifted an eyebrow and started tapping on his scroll furiously.

"What is?" Pyrrha asked.

"I can't access the Rem-net anymore," Jaune tapped his scroll with a scowl on his face, "Error 404 file or directory not found?! _What the hell?_ I was just watching that!" Jaune growled angrily, the others looked at each other as they all tried their own scrolls.

"Hey I can't access the net either." Ruby piped up.

"I can't either." Nora dropped her scroll onto the table.

"Strange," Weiss remarked as she too began tapping on her scroll, "My scroll should at least have access to the worldwide private Schnee network, but _even that's_ down." She turned her head just in time to see everyone giving her a not-amused-in-the-very-least look, "What?" She shrugged.

"Well leaving that aside…I wonder what-" Jaune started but was cut off when several loud beeps echoed through Beacon, announcing the activation of the Beacon Address System.

"Attention all students, a blanket media blackout is now in effect across Vale, all students are advised to refrain from attempting to continue to surf the Rem-net at this time. Any students endeavoring to hack past this blackout will be punished consequently and handed over to the authorities to be charged according to the associated laws and customs. Attention all students…" The announcement continued a few more times just to hammer in to the students that the Rem-net was down.

On the outskirts of the city of Vale, the cries and howls of the Grimm echoed out through the night as the negativity from the highway incident began to slowly boil over. Surprisingly to anyone who might have been observing this however, the sounds seemed to stop increasing in intensity the longer that they went on. The effect of the blackout was beginning to take hold slowly as the night wore on and more and more people went to bed trying their best not to think too much about the recent events that had been hitting the city of Vale.

* * *

 **One idea I've always been intrigued about would be the idea of initiating a media blackout if a particular event became more than a little distressing to the average Vale citizen, reason for this is because ignorance is obviously bliss, therefore cut the information and keep people in the dark because that way, the negativity won't endlessly build on itself and turn into a downward spiral. In this case I suppose one might be wondering just why a little highway scuffle might be capable of generating enough negativity to justify a blackout, I'd like to think that it's more due to a combination of factors.**

 **Firstly, a bunch of trainee huntresses were responsible, which automatically raises questions about trustworthiness**

 **Secondly, an advanced military prototype was found in the hands of a criminal, raising doubts about Atlas's military**

 **Thirdly, the obvious destruction and mayhem.**

 **Add to this in V3, seeing someone apparently die horribly was enough for an attempt to cut the broadcast to the tournament, I like to think that a media blackout is totally in the cards if they need to do it.**

 **If I'm honest, I'm rather unsure if I want to actually take this into an actual courtroom style hearing, mostly because I have no experience with writing such a thing and I personally do not have any experience with it myself save for television shows (Which I don't really take as all that accurate). The urge to do so is strong just to see if I can make it and because I want an excuse for more of the Royal Family to make a show.**

 **With that in mind, if anyone has any tips for writing such a sequence and ideas for me to use, please do share.**

* * *

 **A Shameful Display**

"I'm doomed." Weiss stated firmly as the chaos continued to swirl around her, she slowly lowered herself to the floor, adjusting her hair and clothing until she sat as comfortably as she could in a seiza position.

"Uh Weiss?" Jaune asked carefully as the chaos stopped so that everyone's attention was on the heiress.

"Forgive me sister, father, and mother, for I have brought great shame and disgrace upon the Schnee family name, I understand that I have failed you, but although I may have disappointed you, I assure you that there is no need to worry yourself any more, for I am sworn to uphold the Schnee family name with honor until my dying breath."

"Weiss what're you doing?" Ruby asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I Weiss Schnee am committed to the preservation of the reputation of the Schnee Family Name, therefore for my sins there is only one course of action left open to me, I must…" She trailed off and stopped for a moment as one hand reached into her skirt pocket.

"Commit Sudoku." She deadpanned, and then whipped out a pencil and a sheet of paper with a 9x9 grid on it.

Everyone stared at her as she concentrated hard on the sheet of paper in front of her.

"Well if Weiss is going with Sudoku," Jaune cleared his throat, "I'm going to crucify myself on crosswords." He stated and walked away.

"Eh," Yang waved her hand dismissively, "If that's the case I'll go get thrown off of Snakes and Ladders." And off she went.

"I'll go get the intellectual man's game," Neptune nodded, "Executed brutally on chess." And then he was gone too.

"I'll just go with him." Blake jerked her thumb and followed off.

"Checked on checkers for me I guess." Ruby shrugged and disappeared.

"Huh, why not?" Sun followed her away.

"We'll go with

"Nora I'm not sure that's-" Too late he was already being dragged away.

Pyrrha sighed as she watched everyone walk away, "I guess that leaves me to be drawn and quartered on jigsaw puzzles."

* * *

 **tsktsktsk shamefur dispray**

 **All your reviews, faves and follows are immensely appreciated!**


	25. Our Own Worst Enemy

**Holy shit, I did not believe I would ever be able to get this out, but here it is, 15,000 words worth, the longest chapter I have ever written and indeed the longest piece of writing I have ever done...ever.**

 **This is partly because this chapter is meant to tie you for three weeks, two weeks in July and one in August, normally I split long chapters into several smaller chapters, but after having two chapters of nothing but buildup I felt it was prudent to just get into the thing already and stop wasting time.**

 **And so there you have it.**

 **Enjoy.**

* * *

Have you ever had one of those days? You know…Those days where you end up in a situation where you are just wondering:

 _What the hell am I doing here?_

 _How the fuck did my life reach this point?_

 _I need out, NOW._

 _I shouldn't be here, why am I here?_

 _Where's the toilet? I need the toilet._

Such were the thoughts of Team RWBY as they awaited their fate together in their holding cell; misery and melancholy were in the air as each contemplated their fates and their roles in the present course of events that was unfolding before them.

Weiss had her head bowed low and had her hands clasped together on her lap. She was fidgeting nervously, toes curling and uncurling and fingers drumming on her own hands.

Blake was curled up in the corner with her legs on the bench and leaning her head against the wall, her eyes were glazed over and empty and she seemed to be staring off into nothing.

Yang meanwhile, paced back and forth in circles in their cell, continuously trying to fight down her temper and frustration. Her wrists were bound together with plastic handcuffs.

Ruby squirmed left and right uncomfortably in her spot.

"I need to go to the toilet." She stated.

"Ruby that's the third time in half-an-hour, can't you just hold it in?" Weiss exasperatedly commented and turned her head slightly to face her leader.

Ruby pouted in response, "I can't help it, whenever I get really nervous I always need to pee."

"Gosh you are such a child." Weiss sighed and put her head down again.

"I told you drinking all that water was a bad idea." Blake remarked without moving a single muscle barring her mouth from where she sat.

"I can't help it!" Ruby insisted, "I was dehydrating myself dry in that room!"

"Argh!" Yang threw her hands up in frustration angrily and banged her hands against the cell bars.

"Why don't you cool off before your temper lands us into _more_ trouble?" Weiss quirked an eyebrow.

Yang blithely ignored the remark and settled for gripping the bars and attempting to wrench them loose with all her might, sadly she and the remainder of Team RWBY had been forced to handover their weapons which were now in lockdown. Also, she could not activate her semblance easily and it did no good when she herself was not damaged. She banged her fists against the bars rather pointlessly, the sounds echoing down the corridor, the bars vibrated and shook with every strike, the cacophony seemingly making a mockery of her futile attempts, insulting and laughing at her with every pulse.

"Hey!" An angry voice sounded out, making Yang stop and try to see down the corridor, a pair of guards was approaching, "Stop that this instant!" One growled angrily.

"Or you'll what?" Yang taunted with her tongue stuck out, "Beat me up?"

"Yang…" Weiss narrowed her eyes.

"You're damaging the bars!" The other stated.

"Oh what're you gonna do about it? Huh? Huh?!" Yang sneered at them from behind her bars, "C'mon you schmucks, you wanna piece of this?" She held her fists up in front of them and clenched them tightly.

"We could bill you for damages regardless of the result." The second deadpanned.

"Yeah right, as if the council cares about a lowly-"

" _Yang!_ " Weiss finally raised her voice, turning all attention to her, "Before you land us in _anymore trouble_ will you _control yourself_ for once? Just this…!" Weiss face and mouth contorted as she forced back the swear word that was about to come out, "Once…" She ground her teeth to pieces and finally released her breath, her body shaking.

A moment of silence passed.

"They couldn't really do that could that?" Yang asked meekly with her shoulders bunched up.

"Do you want to test them?" Weiss replied icily, "Because I don't."

Another moment of silence passed.

"So stop banging on the bars already and cool off, it's your own fault that you're here anyway." The guards began to walk away slowly when Yang called out again.

"Hey guys!" They turned to look at her.

"What now?" The first snarled.

"Can you loosen these restraints please?" She pouted.

Both guards turned to look at each other.

"Pretty please? C'mon help a girl out here."

The first guard turned to the second; the second simply nodded and jerked his head back. The first guard then turned and walked back to the cell, he took out a set of keys, pressed it into the keyhole and twisted, and the cell door popped open. Yang backed away a little as the guard entered, Ruby, Weiss and Blake were immediately on guard, staring at the guard and waiting for him to act.

"Well? You gonna help me or not?" Yang held her hands out in front of her, a mischievous smile on her face.

The guard leaned forward until Yang could almost smell his breath, "I will _tighten_ these restraints _huntress_." He hissed, and before Yang could react, he reached over to her cuffs and with one swift yank, pulled the cuffs tight onto her wrists.

"YOW!" Yang cried out and fell to the floor struggling with both of her hands, the guard walked out of the room without missing a beat, slamming the door shut as he went and locking it, leaving the blonde brawler writing in pain on the ground. The rest of Team RWBY breathed a sigh of relief and allowed themselves to relax.

"Fuck this really hurts!" Yang beat her fists angrily against floor, "Dammit get back here! This is police brutality! Excessive use of force!" She shouted as they walked away, "It's cutting the blood circulation off from my extremities!"

They ignored her as they disappeared down the corridor.

"Dammit!" Yang struggled furiously against the bindings.

"Will you pipe down already?" Weiss sighed, "It's still your fault that we're in this mess."

"I still can't believe it was only…" Blake held up her hands and counted off her fingers slowly, "how many days ago was it already?"

* * *

 _ **Three days after the Highway 42 Incident, two days before Team RWBY's incarceration,**_

 _Due to the disruption in communication and coordination caused by the twenty-four hour media blackout, parliament has only recently been able to convene together to vote on the creation of a subcommittee dedicated to investigating the Highway 42 incident. In the meantime demonstrations have erupted calling for the prosecution of not only the team of trainee huntresses involved in the incident, but also for the renowned headmaster of Atlas Academy and one of the Atlesian military's prime leaders, General James Ironwood. The General has yet to make a public appearance since his open house presentation a few days ago showing off where he showed off the prototype models of the Atlesian military's next-generation robot._

" _GO HOME ATLAS! GO HOME ATLAS! GO HOME ATLAS! GO HOME ATLAS!"_ Came the roaring cry of hundreds of protestors gathered outside of an atlesian base, a line of Atlesian soldiers faced them right outside the base.

 _Following the official confirmation that the Atlesian Paladin-290 was in fact a prototype that had been stolen by the wanted criminal Roman Torchwick, a series of protests has erupted around Vale centering on major Atlesian military encampments in the docks area as well as the vicinity of the Atlesian Embassy._

 _Atlesian officials have still refused to comment on the General's current whereabouts in the aftermath of the incident, both he and the headmaster of Beacon Academy have still not_

 _It remains to be seen whether or not they would be able to alleviate fears or if they will only end up aggravating an already tense situation._

"So what now James?" Ozpin asked with a dark frown on his face as he regarded his compatriot, who was shuffling about nervously in his office, "Didn't I tell you to leave your toys at home when you came over here? And now look at what's happened, I have _two_ teams of trainees involved in this, and one of your prototypes _magically_ ended up in the hands of Roman Torchwick and the White Fang." He sipped from his signature cup of coffee, "You see why I didn't want your military around? The only thing you've done so far is to get your own equipment missing." He barely resisted smirking.

General James Ironwood shot him a look, "And the only thing you've done it seems, is to lose control of your own trainees and have a team of them get involved in a fight which…" He jerked his thumb out the window, "involved so much destruction that a media blackout is now being enforced throughout Vale."

"There wouldn't have been such a fight if only you'd be able to keep track of the machines that you love to put on display so much." Ozpin shot back.

"Perhaps I wouldn't need to have my machines in Vale if only you'd keep better track of the White Fang and the criminal supporting him!" the General was starting to raise his voice.

"Am I a god to you?!" Ozpin slowly put down his cup as he clenched his fists, "Am I supposed to be some sort of dictator keeping track of every single minute little detail of event in this kingdom when I'm not even the one technically running it?" He grit his teeth and faced James directly, "In case you didn't notice James, this is _Vale_ , not Atlas, we like to have some form of freedom here and not have everyone under thumbs and wrapped tightly around fingers." He pointed out.

Both men stared at each other, sweating, breathing heavily and with clenched fists and narrowed eyes as though they were two boxers that were about to fight. Eventually though, James gave up first and put his hands up in front of him.

"Look here Ozpin, I'm-"

"Just trying to do your best, I know." Ozpin flatly stated, "And now here we are, two headmasters who are going to have to answer for their subordinates. I am going to have to either throw my own trainees into the fire during the hearing, or accept the blame and lose even more power. You on the other hand…"

"Will have to explain why a prototype military robot went missing and ended up in the hands of a criminal and his terrorist lackeys." James sighed greatly.

"How _did_ that happen anyway?" Ozpin asked, genuinely curious as to how a functioning military prototype had been stolen.

"Apparently," James grit his teeth as he walked to the window to look out of it, "A convoy carrying a number of the prototypes was raided in the middle of the night on its way to its base. The convoy was stopped at a 'security checkpoint' manned by Roman's gang, they then proceeded to disarm and knockout the convoy's guards and take away the prototypes almost bloodlessly, this happened only bare hours before the incident took place." He sighed and shook his head.

"If it ever gets out that the vaunted military of Atlas was tricked and basically handed over their equipment on a silver platter…" Ozpin shook his head.

More silence passed between them.

"What is the council trying to do? Pushing this vote through so quickly…?" James asked.

"They're trying to limit our available pool of allies as much as possible," Ozpin explained, "The faster they push through this motion, the faster they can get the subcommittee set up and the faster they can have everyone's heads they don't like on the chopping block…which means me and you obviously."

"What allies do we have?"

"None here…but I'm working on that.

"Oh?"

"Well…not me per se…"

At the same time as Ozpin and James Ironwood were discussing their next course of action, a certain prince-in-hiding was currently hiding out in one of the toilets in Beacon, having dismissed himself from his team's presence so that he could talk to his family back in the royal enclaves in privacy. Now he sat down in one of the stalls with his scroll in front of him trying to get a connection through to the Frostriver mansion, the scroll beeped at him repeatedly as it tried to establish a link. The Crown Prince's personal scroll was turned off, which meant he must be busy at the moment.

 _C'mon, pickuppickuppickuppickuppickuppickuppickuppickup-_

A click, announcing the link had finally been established.

"Hello? Oh young master!" The maid Tsuki greeted with a bright smile on her face and a wave.

"Hey Tsuki, is my uncle there?" He asked, returning the smile.

"Eh? Erm…" Tsuki tapped her lip with a finger, "He's rather busy now, in a meeting with your sister I think."

"That's great! Could you put me through to both of them please?!" Jaune urged her on.

"Uh…I don't think-" Tsuki hesitated.

"It's _very urgent_." Jaune pushed insistently.

"Well, you see-"

" _Really…really…urgent._ "

"…Like 'I'm desperate for the toilet because I have a stomachache' urgent? Or 'Why won't the water boil faster for tea' urgent?" She asked.

Jaune blinked, since when did Tsuki make toilet jokes?

"Let's say the former ok?" He replied with one eyebrow twitching.

"Alright, I'll see if I can get him to activate his own scroll, then you two can talk privately."

Tsuki moved off as quickly as she could, down hallways, through corridors, up and down staircases until she reached the private meeting room in the Frostriver mansion, where the Crown Prince was currently meeting together with the governess of Armorica Marina Arc and her advisors. She slowed down as she approached the door, muffled voices coming from it, usually the master disliked being disturbed while he was in the middle of meetings like this, and he had been very firm in that regard, but since his own nephew had demanded it, she supposed he was going to have to make an exception this time.

She lifted her hand and rapped on the door with her knuckles.

There was a pause, and some shuffling noises and then the door was slowly opened by a girl who she recognized as one of the Royal Protectors assigned to her master.

She kept the door opened only far enough that half of her face was shown, "What is it?" She asked dryly.

"It's for the Crown Prince and the governess, tell him that Prince Jean is requesting for him, do tell him that the young master said it was urgent." The girl nodded impassively as she closed the door and left Tsuki in the hallway.

There was some shuffling about and noises from behind the door.

And then the door opened more widely and the Crown Prince Edward and Princess Maria appeared at the doorway.

"Ah, your highnesses-"

"And what does my idiot nephew want?" Edward asked with narrowed eyes, Tsuki had to resist squeaking in fear.

"He didn't say what; he just said it was _really…really…urgent_." She responded, repeating Jaune's own words.

Marina's eyebrows shot up while maintaining a blank look, she turned to her uncle, "I can handle this if you want."

"No, no," Edward held up his hand in front of him as he pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, "if it's really _that urgent_ , I think we'd better go and see what that idiot has gotten himself into _now_ before anything else untoward starts happening." He looked up with a tired expression on his face.

Marina straightened her glasses, "Well do lead the way Tsuki."

"Err, wouldn't it be better for you to use your own scroll your highness? It would be far more private." Tsuki meekly suggested.

"Well the main scroll in the room should be private enough I think." Edward stated with a look. Tsuki bowed and led the way back to where she had answered the call from Jaune, upon reaching the room she gave a little curtsy.

"I shall be right outside if you need me your highnesses." She bowed her head as they walked into the room and she closed the door behind them.

Marina strode quickly over to the primary scroll which connected to a larger screen on the wall, quickly punching in several numbers and activating the system loudspeaker at the same time, the two stood and waited as a link was established between the scroll and Jaune's own scroll.

A click, and Jaune's face appeared on the screen, he looked rather surprised to see the both of them, but before he could open his mouth to speak, Marina was already speaking.

"So what's so important that I have to be pulled away from a budget meeting to address…" Marina folded her arms as she said that, " _Whatever_ this urgent situation of yours is." She raised one hand and waved it about.

"Uh…of course! Well let's see…err…" Jaune struggled to get the words out, it was a lot harder when both his elder sister and uncle were looking at him like that, made worse by the intent way in which they looked at him.

"Spit it out Jaune." Edward narrowed his eyes.

"I might have to go attend a council hearing." Jaune spat out as fast as he could as firmly as he could.

Eyebrows went up on the other side of the screen.

"That's it?" Marina shrugged, "You _might_ have to attend a council hearing? What did you do this time? Blow up a dust warehouse or something?" She scoffed.

"If that really is all Jaune," This time Edward stepped forward, "Then we really need to go, there are more pressing matters-" He was about to turn when Jaune spoke again.

"It has to do with the Highway 42 incident." And he had the attention of both his sister and his uncle.

"Don't tell me," Marina growled, "You were involved in that?" She seethed, "Jaune what did we say about playing the hero the last time you-"

"Wait let me finish!" Jaune held up his hands in front of the screen, "It was another team that was involved in that, but since I'm close friends with them, I might get called up as a witness if the hearing turns the team over to a court for further prosecution."

"So?" Marina threw her hands up, "Just go along with it, what…do you need us to be there to hold your hand while you do it or something?"

"Well no…"

"Just go through with it Jaune." Edward rolled his eyes, "It'll be a good experience for you to learn the inner and outer mechanisms of the council, you yourself might have to deal with them one day yourself you know."

"Yeah but…" Jaune fidgeted rather uncomfortably, "You see all three of my unofficial protectors are personally involved in the incident."

"Ok?" Marina raised an eyebrow, "They shouldn't have been wasting time playing around with some criminal and a bunch of scumbag terrorists anyway, just leave it alone Jaune, if it had been Gravelyn getting involved then there might have been a problem, but as it stands there's nothing to worry about."

"Well my identity is kind of at risk if they call me up…"

"Take a leave of absence then, they can't call you up if you're not technically in the kingdom."

A moment of silence passed through the air.

"Well if that is all then-" Edward turned to leave when Jaune chose that moment to interrupt.

"I'm not leaving or anything like that." He stated firmly, Edward turned back to look at his nephew, who was looking at the screen very determinedly, "I won't leave my friends behind to suffer like that."

Marina sighed, "Then what are you calling for in the first place? You're not asking to help arrange transport back, the only advice we can give you is just go with it, _really_ _Jaune_ we're busy people you can't just dial us up whenever you feel like it."

 _Well granted Vicky would like it if you did, but that's not the topic here._ Marina shut herself up before she mentioned their youngest sibling.

"Well to be honest…" Jaune bit his lip as he inhaled sharply, well nothing for it now, he closed his eyes and took a leap off the edge and into the abyss.

"I was…hoping…you could…help my friends." He said slowly, he expelled his breath with an explosive gasp and looked for his relative's reactions.

That raised eyebrows again, and they were staying there as Marina and Edward exchanged a confused look.

"Help…your…friends…?" They said simultaneously before turning back to look at Jaune with dark frowns on both of their faces, Jaune flinched as both glared at him from the other side of the screen.

"What _exactly_ do you mean by that?" Marina straightened her glasses with a curious gleam in her eyes, her eyes were carefully searching Jaune's face, technically speaking she already had a fairly good idea of what he meant and what he was asking them for, she just wondered if he had the guts to say it out loud in front of their uncle. Her eyes shifted hesitatingly to the Crown Prince, who had let his face fall into one hand, rubbing his eyes tiredly with his index finger and thumb.

"I meant well…erm…how do I put it…?" Jaune stuttered, "Is there say…anyway in which we could help them?"

"Help them how?" Edward raised his voice indignantly, making even Marina jump at the sudden increase in volume "The Royal Family isn't some charity Jaune," He said firmly, "We don't go around dispensing help to whoever needs it freely, and I hope you do understand that you are basically abusing your own position to influence events in your preferred direction."

"I know." Jaune said simply.

"Then why?"

"Because if I have the opportunity to do something, shouldn't I take that opportunity?" Jaune asked forcefully, "If I can influence events in my favor, shouldn't I try?"

"Should you?" Edward shot back, "Should you continue to risk your fragile position and identity? I would also like to remind you that we as a general rule do not try to interfere with the Vale politics, they are still very much _our_ masters and we are broadly speaking still beholden to them no matter how much we wish we were independent."

" _I know that_." Jaune grit his teeth and forced himself to _not_ hiss out every word. His mind raced, he had to convince his uncle to help somehow, there were few other options available to Team RWBY otherwise. Ozpin had already stated that he had done his best to help them out in his own way, although Jaune himself was not too sure of what exactly that entailed.

"Then stop wasting our time and be off with you already." He turned to Marina, "Cut the connection."

Marina shrugged and moved to the scroll with one hand outstretched to tap the disconnect button.

"Wait!" Jaune called out, Marina stopped her hand midway and lifted an eyebrow at Jaune, "Please! Uncle, sis…they're my friends, I really, _really_ want to help them." He pleaded.

Marina withdrew her hand fully, sighed and rubbed her forehead, "Jaune," She began slowly, "It's not just about whether or not we can or should help them," She folded her arms and turned to face her younger brother, "the point is even if we did help them… _what do we get out of it_?"

 _What do we get out of it?_ The words rang out and echoed in Jaune's head, the answer was self-evident, nothing of course, what on remnant would the House of Vale gain by standing up for a team of reckless trainee huntresses? What would it accomplish for the royal family other than potentially earn them the ire of the larger populace of Vale? It was cold, hard logic, they were not going to give something for nothing, that concept was not how the Royal Enclaves worked, scarce resources meant that everything had to be justifiable and written down in black and white for everyone to see.

Not to be used at the whim of a prince trying to save his friends from an uncertain fate.

"We might gain the loyalty of a whole _one_ team of hunters…which is nothing compared to the fallout that could ensue."

"Is there…" Jaune bowed his head low, until his eyes almost disappeared, "Is there nothing we can do at all?"

 _Well we could bribe some of the council members to try to show their support for your friends, on the other hand money is kind of tight here and if it goes wrong it could really blow up in our faces. We could also try to exert influence by getting friendlier council members onto the subcommittee, which would automatically seem rather suspicious…_ Marina tapped her foot idly, thinking of the possibilities that she knew were not going to come true anyway, no matter how much Jaune might wish it.

" _Nothing_ we can do," Edward stated as he tilted his head upwards and crossed his arms, "And _nothing_ you should do." His tone had a sense of finality to it, his eyes staring right at Jaune, demanding that he accept the reality of the situation and give it up, urging him to be reasonable on his own terms.

 _Sometimes, you just can't have everything._ Were the unspoken words.

"Is that all from you?" Edward asked.

Jaune remained silent.

"Then Marina, please disconnect the call and we should be getting back to the meeting." Without another word, Crown Prince Edward turned around and made for the door, just as he touched the doorknob, he realized his niece was not following on behind him; instead she stood there, staring at the image of Jaune on the screen. Apparently, the other side had not disconnected yet.

"…Make it quick." He sighed and exited the room, Tsuki bowing her head as he left.

"Jaune…" Marina started, using the softer tone that she reserved for him in private.

"I know, I know, it was wrong for me to overstep myself like that right?" He looked up with a weak smile; Marina noticed his eyes were slightly watery, "Ah, uncle is such a hardass sometimes."

"You know he means well."

"Yeah I do."

There was nothing that Marina would have preferred more in that very moment to be able to reach out and hug her little –and only- brother the same way she had in the aftermath of the White Fang attack two years ago, he looked absolutely terrible in the state that he was in. She still vividly recalled holding on to him as he cried miserably in the hospital in the aftermath of the attack, armed wrapped tight around each other, hot tears pouring from eyes…

"I guess I'll see you around sis." His words snapped her back to reality, and she re-focused her attention on him.

"They must mean a lot to you don't they?" Marina had not had many friends growing up; an edgy older sister and an excitable older _twin_ sister gave her enough interaction in a day to satisfy.

"Yeah, they do." Jaune nodded with a slightly brighter smile.

"I see," She pursed her lips; "Good luck brother, and stay safe." She nodded, there was nothing else to say or do at this point.

"You too sis." And the connection cut out.

In Beacon Academy, Jaune slumped his side against the wall of the toilet stall, breathing heavily. That had not worked out at all, but of course why should it anyway? He himself had had no real plan in mind, no idea for what could have been done, no strategy to effect, he had called up his uncle and elder sister pointlessly to make an empty request for assistance that they would not be able to give.

 _Stupid, stupid!_ He smacked his own forehead, he sucked in a lungful of air and breathed it out, shaking his head to clear his thoughts, it was pointless to cry over it, he would have to settle for another path, this one was clearly blocked out for him.

He got off the toilet seat, pushed open the door and walked over to the sink, turning on the tap, rubbing his hands and letting the cold water distract him from his thoughts, he splashed the water onto his face, exhaling a sigh of satisfaction as he did so and blinking away the droplets out of his eyes. As he did so the door to the toilet opened and in walked Cardin Winchester.

Jaune glanced at Cardin out of the corner of his eye; the two regarded each other for the barest of a moment as Cardin walked past to the urinal.

" _Good luck Arc_ ," Cardin sneered as he walked behind Jaune.

In that moment, Jaune wanted nothing more than to bash his face through the toilet sink.

Shaking off the thought and the comment, he headed back to Team RWBY's dorm, where both teams –and Sun and Neptune- were gathered and were trying to help each other out with what basically amounted to a Q&A session to prepare for the hearing, at this point the vote was more or less confirmed even if it was technically only minutes away from taking place. He knocked a few times and entered.

"I'm back." He dryly remarked to the other seven, all of whom were sitting in a circle.

Weiss had taken the lead in these 'lessons', trying to coach Ruby to be more tactful and graceful in her words and trying to get Blake to speak more than a single phrase at a time, but mostly trying to prevent Yang from mouthing off to a bunch of people infinitely higher in authority and power than she was.

"Ms. Xiao Long, why exactly did you think going along with your sister's plan was a good idea?"

"Erm, because she's my sister and my leader and I should be supporting her?"

"You did not for a moment think that you should perhaps stop a reckless action such as this?"

"Well hey! It seemed like a good idea at the time! It's not like we could've anticipated being dragged in front of a bunch of old men and women-"

"Yang!" Weiss scolded, "focus!"

"Ok, ok!" Yang scratched her head and sighed, "I felt that it was my duty to be by my sister's side and do my best to help her out in her endeavors, besides if I weren't there then Ruby might have run off on her own to do something dangerous and end up in a situation where she could not have easily received help." She folded her arms and nodded with a small smile on her lips, clearly proud of her answer.

"Ok…" Weiss picked up a sheet of paper and scribbled something on it, "I think that was…ok…?" She glanced up to look at Jaune for approval.

"Or she could follow up by asking if Ruby has always been this reckless since she was a child." Jaune said as he sat down.

"Hm." Weiss hummed.

"I give up!" Yang threw her hands into the air fell backwards, "I swear to god there is never a right answer for any of this shit!" She swore loudly.

"There never is Yang," Blake rolled her eyes, "The only way is to use answers to lead into the questions that _we_ want them to ask."

"Wait, we want them to ask questions?"

"The easy questions."

Ruby meanwhile, looked completely lost and seemed to have drifted into a trance in the middle of the discussion; she was aimlessly fidgeting with her fingers and flapping her knees in a cross-legged position.

"Moving on…" Weiss turned to Ruby, "Ms. Rose, please tell us exactly what your plan was for dealing with the White Fang?"

"…huh…?" Ruby snapped out of her trance and looked around the room, "Oh is Jaune back already?" She looked rather hopefully at him, he had after all dismissed himself in order to make a personal call back home, and since she already knew who his family was…

Unfortunately, Jaune could only answer her with a passing shrug, and her rather hopeful face fell back down to the ground.

"Ruby pay attention!" Weiss exasperatedly called out.

"Huh? Oh! Err…What was the question?" She asked, completely unaware of what was going on.

Weiss facepalmed.

* * *

 _ **Two days later,**_

In the end the result had more or less been obvious from the start, no matter how many prayers were made or how many tears were shed. In the end, the vote was in favor of Team RWBY being made to stand before a committee to answer for their actions during the highway 42 incident; they were not alone though, General James Ironwood was also being taken to task for the usage of a highly classified robotic prototype having been used in the incident by Roman Torchwick over the protests of the Atlesian Council who wanted to deal with Ironwood in their own way. They would also be joined by Headmaster Ozpin seeing as it was his students who were on the firing line.

Curiously, the motion itself had been significantly altered from the initial piece, neither Sun not Neptune were required to be a part of the proceedings, rather it seemed that they were to be confined to Beacon due to their status as foreign students, although it seemed to be more due to the fact that they were not personally involved in the Highway 42 incident itself, even if they had been essentially 'aiding and abetting' Team RWBY.

Team RWBY had done their level best to prepare themselves in only a few days' time, and so as they waited at Beacon's landing pad for the bullhead along with Ozpin and Team JNPR, each of them carried a file filled with their own handwritten notes and words. Weiss had the thickest, and then Yang, and then Ruby.

Surprisingly, Blake had the thinnest file of all.

"I'm surprised you're tagging along Mr. Arc," Ozpin looked at Team JNPR's leader, "You weren't asked to be a part of this."

"Its fine," Jaune brushed it off, "I wanted to -*HRK* be there to provide moral support." He waved off his nausea and swallowed.

" _Oh you_." Weiss rolled her eyes, "I heard General Ironwood might be there as well, where is he?"

"He has his own personal transport," Ozpin smirked, "In any case the good General will not be joining us per se, his problem is rather uniquely different from ours and will be handled separately. We will have to take a designated transport vehicle ready for us at the landing pad, expect to see the press, they will be demanding answers and there'll most likely be a lot of lights and cameras waiting for you when we land."

"I suppose we won't be taking the designated transport?" Jaune asked.

"Nope, you'll have to make your own way there."

They boarded the bullhead together and sat opposite each other, remaining quiet, each doing their own thing to pass the time, Ruby was fidgeting nervously and tapping her feet against the floor of the bullhead, Weiss was going through her notes repeatedly while Yang decided to take a nap and Blake…

Well Blake was curled up in her seat, her head in her knees, arms wrapped around her legs.

"Hey Blake," Jaune turned the attention of the bullhead to the cat Faunus, she lifted her head and looked at him with weary eyes.

"Are you alright?" He asked, even though he knew he was a complete hypocrite to ask that question considering his airsickness, in any case the answer was probably going to be 'I'm fine' or some variation thereof.

He often did it himself after all.

Blake put her head back down between her knees and exhaled a great sigh of lamentation; she turned her head ever so slightly so that she could look at both Weiss and Ruby out of the corner of her eyes.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry I dragged all of you into this," She looked quite gloomy.

"Ah forget about it," Weiss waved her hand dismissively, "What's important now is that we convince them that we were doing what was right, and that we successfully unveiled a conspiracy by the White Fang and even managed to disrupt their activities."

"Yeah, we're a team aren't we? One for all and all for one!" Ruby cheered as best as she could, although it was pretty evident that even she was not feeling very good about herself.

Ozpin seemed to chuckle at that, "While I admire your determination Ms. Rose, getting your team through this hearing is going to take a lot more than heart and resolve, the committee will not hesitate to put you in a difficult spot and pressure you as hard as they can, and this time, Crescent Rose will not be there to help you." He explained.

"Wait what?" Ruby lifted an eyebrow.

"You will all have to give up your weapons obviously; they can't possibly let in armed and dangerous people into the hearing can they?" Ozpin straightened his glasses.

"But we can still use our hands to break legs if we need to right?" Nora asked.

"Well…yes…but that would not be a recommended course of action Ms. Valkyrie, it might incite even worse emotions."

"Aw." Nora shrank back in her seat.

"With that in mind, I presume that you have a strategy like any good team for this situation?" He back to Team RWBY.

"Of course," Weiss nodded, "Since Ruby isn't such a confident speaker, _I_ will take the lead in answering the questions, if need be Blake will back me up." Weiss confidently said.

"So then what will Ms. Rose and Ms. Xiao Long do?"

"If anyone asks me a question, I rephrase the question with my own question and then throw it back at them in such a way that it works!" Ruby nodded confidently.

Ozpin lifted a questioning eyebrow, "For example?"

"Ok, Ms. Rose," Weiss immediately adopted her formal persona, "Why did you feel that taking your team without official sanction to investigate the White Fang was a good idea?"

"Well did my team have the most experience with handling the White Fang? Yes we did, even if it was an accident, my team was involved in the docks incident earlier this year and as such we were more familiar with the group than most would be." Ruby was beaming as she said it.

"Interesting, but what else is there?"

"Ms. Belladonna, how exactly did your team manage to gather together enough Intel about the White Fang that you were able to infiltrate one of their rallies?"

"We managed it with great difficulty." Blake deadpanned without looking up.

"Mmhmm, go on." Ozpin nodded.

"Ok, Ruby?" Weiss gestured to herself.

"Right!" Ruby held up a finger and cleared her throat, "Ms. Schnee, would you kindly tell us what the stated objective of this investigation was supposed to be?" She said in her deepest voice, which drew a laugh from Team JNPR.

"Well sirs, many of us do question what the objective of this investigation was, and it is with great pleasure that I inform you that in the event of such another incident, such a question will not have to be asked again."

Ozpin blinked, rubbed his chin and looked over Team RWBY, not entirely sure if he should either congratulate the team for coming up with a series of strategies like this or if he should be feeling more than a little worried that the team of teenagers was capable of coming with strategies such as this.

On the other hand, they had an heiress and a prince on their side, so maybe it was inevitable?

"You also have a cover story don't you?" Jaune asked in-between dry-heaving.

"Yep," Ruby nodded, "It was an accident that we encountered Roman Torchwick, we definitely were not infiltrating the White Fang or anything like that!" She smiled reassuringly.

Everyone fell into silence after that.

Pyrrha rubbed Jaune's back comfortingly as he threatened to start heaving again; he smiled at her in thanks as the bullhead finally landed, Yang yawned and stretched her limbs, "We there yet?" She mumbled.

"Well I guess this is it…" Jaune clapped his hands and rubbed them together.

"Stop acting like you're the one who's going to be suffering." Blake rolled her eyes.

"Hey I'm trying to be encouraging and…" As the bullhead's doors opened, they were immediately greeted by a pair of armed guards walking into the bullhead.

"Team RWBY? Headmaster Ozpin?" One of them asked.

"Present and accounted for." Ozpin replied.

"Your ride is waiting outside." They gestured for the team and the headmaster to follow them.

"Hey Rubes," Jaune placed a hand on Ruby's shoulder just before she walked out, she glanced up to him with a curious expression. He took a hold of her hood and flipped it up and onto her head.

"Keep your head low," She lifted an eyebrow, "Camera flash." He explained.

"I don't suppose you have any last minute cavalry to save us all?" She meekly asked while pushing her index fingers together, "I mean…you know since you're…" She trailed off.

Jaune scratched his head awkwardly when she said that, "Eh, well I can't have everything either I guess, I'm more surprised the Schnee family isn't taking a bigger interest in this."

"Oh, well Weiss said-"

"Ruby stop stalling and come on!" Weiss called out angrily.

"That's my cue; I guess I'll see you guys at the edge of the abyss." She nodded and quickly ran after the rest of her team.

"Good luck and stay safe gals!" Jaune waved at them as Team JNPR exited the bullhead as well, watching the limo drive off.

"Jaune…" Pyrrha asked with a strange tone in her voice, "What did Ruby mean back there?" Jaune turned to face her and she seemed to look a little sullen for some reason.

"What? What did Ruby mean?" Jaune asked obliviously.

"It seemed like some kind of inside joke between you two." Ren cocked an eyebrow as he stood beside you.

"Yeah, what have we been missing out on?" Nora demanded angrily.

"Look guys," Jaune tried to calm them down, "She probably just means that I'm the one who's always coming up with ideas and stuff."

"Really…" Pyrrha did not seem especially convinced.

"Look shall we just get over to the hearing? I don't want to miss anything." Jaune said firmly as he walked to the road to flag a passing cab.

One stopped, all four piled in and off they went.

They stopped a short distance away and walked the remaining distance to the Parliament building, arriving to find a large crowd gathered on the field lining the road leading to the parliament building. Some of them were holding boards with slogans on them demanding the departure of the Atlas military, some of the boards had insults and angry slogans on them directed at either Ozpin or the team of huntresses themselves.

Pyrrha shook her head in disgust, "I didn't think there'd be so much hate like this…"

"People will always find things to blame." Jaune commented with mirth in his voice, "C'mon, we'd better-"

"Hey is that Pyrrha Nikos?" A voice sounded out from the crowd.

And then suddenly, the spotlight was now on the crimson champion from Mistral.

"Ms. Nikos! Any comment on the current situation?!"

"What are your thoughts on seeing the recklessness of the Beacon huntresses?"

"Do you have any regrets coming to Vale?"

"Are you in any relationship right now?"

"Uh…" Pyrrha was caught completely off guard.

 _Well that's a celebrity for you I guess…_ Jaune thought as he held his arm up to shield his eyes from the bright camera flashes. Both Ren and Nora were looking rather lost and were standing closely with each other, Ren was gritting his teeth as he backed away slowly, even Nora uncharacteristically looked rather nervous being under so much attention at once. Unfortunately the crowd had surrounded the team such that they were all standing with their backs against each other with no visible way out of the situation.

"Ms. Nikos is this person your boyfriend?" One gestured at Jaune, the person in question rolled his eyes at the remark.

"No!" Pyrrha denied, although her face went beet red at the comment.

"Is this the one?" Another one gestured at Ren.

"Hey back off!" Nora growled reaching for Magnhild, Jaune quickly caught her hand before she did so.

"Nora don't! You'll only make things worse." Jaune chided her, although at that point he was frustrated enough that letting her go to town on the crowd with her hammer was a damn tempting thought.

 _How to get out of this?_ He wondered, and then it hit him.

"Nora!" He called out, Nora turned to face him with a questioning look on her face, "Smoke 'em." He grinned as he checked, Nora returned it with an even more malicious look on her face as Magnhild appeared, a single round was loaded and with thumping sound, the area filled with dense white smoke.

Holding his breath, Jaune reached out and grabbed a hold of Pyrrha's hand, she had been caught off guard again by the sudden cloud of smoke and was choking and hacking as Jaune pulled her out of the crowd with Nora and Ren following close behind. They exited the area outside the building and were able to duck into an alleyway a short distance away to catch their breath.

"Well that was…" Ren was at a loss for words, never having experienced such a thing.

"Weird." Nora completed his sentence.

"I'm sorry you guys," Pyrrha apologized with a glum look on her face.

"Don't worry it's not your fault." Jaune released her hand, rubbed her shoulder and flashed an encouraging smile at her.

She returned it, although still flushed from hearing Jaune be referred to as her boyfriend.

"C'mon this is our chance; let's sneak through while they've all gone back to herding aroun the front." Jaune waved his hand.

Sometime later, a lot of pushing and bustling and hustling, Jaune getting Pyrrha to tie her boot laces every once in a while and a lot of:

"Hey is that Pyrrha Nikos?" One person shouted.

"Oh she gets that _a lot_!" Jaune hollered back as he tugged Pyrrha away.

Team JNPR had finally managed to get themselves a position sitting in a small corner at the edge of the room not too far from the main doors.

"Well here goes." Jaune rubbed his hands as the committee filed into the room in front, all around them were stationed armed guards standing at attention with their guns at the ready, in the middle of the room sat Team RWBY at a single table, flanked on one side by Headmaster Ozpin, all of them appeared rather nervous and twitchy, even Weiss seemed to shifting uncomfortably from side to side.

The Headmaster in question lifted an eyebrow as he saw he was leading the opening address, "Good morning, fellow councilors, ladies and gentlemen, headmasters…" Councilor Nyla spoke slowly, her eyes trailing over the assembled audience and defendants, "huntresses. I am Councilor Nyla, chairwoman of the committee charged with investigating the recent altercations by the team of trainee huntresses named RWBY corresponding to their involvement in what has now been termed the highway 42 incident, the committee is also involved in investigating the appearance of a highly classified Atlesian military prototype robot during this incident, this robot was subsequently engaged and destroyed by Team RWBY, the resulting engagement destroyed much of the surrounding area around the Highway and caused a pile up resulting in significant civilian casualties."

Ruby and Yang were suddenly feeling incredibly sleepy; the former took a sip of water from a cup in front of her to try to stay awake.

"So to begin with," She cleared her throat, "perhaps Team RWBY could explain to us exactly what they were doing before the incident happened?" She gave them a questioning look; her face remained completely blank otherwise, seeing this Weiss quickly cleared her throat and took the lead.

"Chairwoman-" She tried but was soundly cut off.

"Starting with Ms. Rose."

The person in question immediately tensed up and wary of all the watchful looks on her, slowly stood up and…

"Ms. Rose, what're you doing?" Nyla lifted a questioning eyebrow.

"Err…standing up?"

"For what purpose exactly?"

"To…answer the question?"

"…You may _sit_ while answering Ms. Rose."

 _Geez I'm never gonna get used to being called that, I'm too young to be Ms. Rose!_ Ruby thought frantically and she fell back into her seat with a sigh of relief and promptly fell silent.

"Ruby!" Weiss elbowed her sharply.

"Hey! What?" Ruby narrowed her eyes irritably.

"Answer the question!" Her partner hissed angrily.

"Huh? Oh right! Erm…" Ruby thought hard, "I was…meeting another friend."

"Meeting another friend?"

"Yes."

 _Well she threw me into a dumpster so…yeah._ Ruby stopped herself from rolling her eyes.

"You were not already with your team?"

"No, we had…separated for the day."

"All of you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Erm…what…?"

"Why Ms. Rose?" Ruby was completely confused by Nyla's question, the councilor sighed and said, "Why did your entire team separate for the day?"

"Oh! That was because…" _Wait I have an answer for that!_ Ruby quickly opened her file and flicked through a few pages, _I don't have an answer for that?!_ She looked stunned and turned to Weiss, who was giving her a 'why are you looking at me?' sort of look.

"Ms. Rose please answer the question."

"Because…" Ruby tried to think of something, "We…all…had…our…own…things to do?" She said slowly, flinching as the words came out of her mouth.

"And I suppose in your case, this 'own thing' would've been meeting another friend yes?"

"Err…yes precisely that!" Ruby nodded quickly.

"Can this friend confirm this statement of yours?"

That statement caught Ruby off guard, how on earth was she supposed to explain that her friend was a robot who had dumped her into a dumpster and then walked off with two other Atlesian soldiers?

"…No…"

"…Ok…Fair enough…" Nyla turned to the next person on the table in front, Ruby breathed a little easier as she took another sip of water, "And what about you Ms. Schnee?"

Weiss exhaled a short breath, her time had come, she would definitely do her family proud here, the short timespan between the incident and the hearing meant that she had little time to contact or organize anything with her family, leaving her primarily to do her own thing. Still that did not mean anything, she was a Schnee, and she would get through this just fine.

"Chairwoman thank you, right before the incident occurred, I was in the Cross-Continental Transmit system tower in Beacon contacting my family, and you can easily verify this by way of the camera system in place at the tower itself."

"…I see, and what about you Ms. Belladonna?"

"I was…" _ok stick to the plan Blake_ "I was also meeting with another friend, Sun Wukong from Mistral, we were just eating together at a café."

"The Monkey Faunus from Mistral? The transfer student?"

"Yes, that's him."

"Alright then, and how about you Ms. Xiao Long, where were you at the time?" She turned to look at the blonde brawler.

Yang had nearly dozed off in her seat and was not paying attention to the proceedings, her eyelids were drooping low and she was having trouble sitting up straight and not falling face-first into the table.

"Ms. Xiao Long?" Nyla called out.

"Bwah?" Yang's eyes shot open on hearing her name get called, she looked left and right, a lost expression on her face, "Did someone…call me?"

The rest of Team RWBY resisted facepalming in reaction, Ruby took a gulp of water.

"Ms. Xiao Long where were you just before the Highway 42 incident?" Surprisingly, Nyla's face did not show a trace of annoyance or irritation, she remained for the most part, completely impassive, one could say almost uncaring in her manner.

"Erm…I was…" _What was I doing?_ "I was just…going for a ride on my bike, you know, just riding around Vale, taking a break from Beacon, catching a breather so to speak, that sort of thing." Yang tried.

"I see…" The tone of Nyla's voice absolutely dripped with boredom; as if she had better things to do than manage this committee, "With all this in mind then, how exactly did all of you end up in a confrontation with Roman Torchwick seeing as all of you were separated from each other before the incident started?"

Blake swallowed, this was her cue.

"I was the one who found the robot in Roman's possession; it was then that I called the rest of my team over to assist me."

"Assist you in what Ms. Belladonna?"

"Erm…" Blake took a moment to think, "Assist me in combating the robot ma'am."

"To assist you in combating the robot," Nyla seemed to accept that explanation, "And how exactly did you come across Roman Torchwick, the White Fang, and the robot together in one place?"

"It was all an accident; I didn't mean to find out all about that."

"Do clarify what you mean by 'accident' Ms. Belladonna."

"I mean I followed them to their hideout and found them there."

"So you _accidentally_ followed them to their hideout?"

"No! I meant…!" Blake took a deep breath to calm herself and sort out her thoughts, "I mean I happened to overhear a suspicious conversation between two men at the café I was at, I followed them to their hideout and discovered the rally there."

"You deliberately followed them to their hideout."

"Yes."

"On purpose."

"Yes."

"And Mr. Wukong? How does he fit into all of this?"

"He was with me the whole time."

"And he agreed to follow the suspicious men with you."

"Yes."

"Ok…" Nyla scribbled something down on a notepad, "So Ms. Belladonna, tell us how you and Mr. Wukong _accidentally-on-purpose_ stumbled onto a White Fang operation that happened to include Roman Torchwick in it?"

"It wasn't easy." Blake answered.

"It wasn't easy to stumble onto a White Fang operation?"

"…No."

"In that case, perhaps you could tell us how _did_ you stumble onto a White Fang operation?" Nyla almost smirked.

"Well-" Blake begun but was then soundly cutoff.

"Chairwoman, if I may?" A man seated to the left of Nyla faced her with a pleasant expression on his face, Nyla glanced at him before nodding. He was a sort of pudgy looking elderly figure, he wore dark-rimmed spectacles and was balding.

"Please do Councilor Whitemore."

"Ms. Belladonna I find it very difficult to believe that a few mere trainee huntresses were able to simply _stumble_ –as you so succinctly put it- onto a major terrorist operation just like that. Now bear with me here for a moment, I'm not saying that it's impossible for such an event to have occurred, merely I find it improbable that you did so without any form of outside assistance or aid."

"Well sir, as you said so yourself, such an event is merely improbable and not an impossible occurrence." Blake confidently answered.

"Yes indeed, improbable enough that we have never had such an incident such as this," Whitemore noted with a strange tone, "Improbable enough that it makes me wonder how much of a coincidence this is."

"I…don't understand sir." Blake –and indeed the rest of Team RWBY- was genuinely confused, where on Remnant was he going with this?

"It's a strange coincidence, especially with how this incident was treated by both parties in the immediate aftermath." He replied in a matter-of-factly tone of voice.

At this point, Ozpin who had been keeping quiet chose to speak, "If you have a question regarding my handling of the aftermath, you would do better to address me directly councilor Whitemore." He deadpanned.

Whitemore seemed a little taken aback, by nevertheless leaned forward across his desk, "I'm questioning the response by Beacon in the aftermath of the incident, not only was there absolutely no information given out or indeed any form of reassurance made, rather there was complete silence on the matter by both parties, yours and General Ironwood's." He said rather simply.

"That can be attributed to the fact that we were busy trying to gather all the facts of the incident before we made any presumptions." Ozpin explained tersely.

"Excuse me?" Whitemore lowered his head to look at Ozpin from behind his glasses, "I beg your pardon headmaster but I don't think anyone in this room has any presumptions as to what happened that night." He bluntly stated in a sort of arrogant and smug tone, and immediately Team RWBY could feel a tremendous dislike start to boil for him, if he noticed the glares he was getting he did not comment on it and merely continued speaking, "A team of trainee huntresses, _apparently_ with no help whatsoever, were able to stumble across and disrupt a major operation just on their own? I think everyone can see that there is more to this than just the surface."

"Excuse me councilor?" Ozpin actually sounded angry, "Are you insinuating that I deliberately put the lives of not only my students at risk, but also the lives of dozens of innocent civilians just to root out a White Fang hideout?" His eyes were narrowed and his face a dark frown.

"I was merely-"

"Merely what councilor? If you think for even a moment that I would venture to risk valuable students and innocent civilians on busting terrorists –which by the way should be the job of the police- then you are sorely mistaken, the role of students at Beacon is first and foremost to counter the threat of the Grimm, that is what our curriculum is based on and that is what they are trained for."

That was apparently good enough to shut Whitemore up for the moment.

"Well now that that has been settled…" Nyla cleared her throat as she re-organized her papers, and then noticed something odd on Team RWBY's table.

"Ms. Xiao Long?" The blonde brawler was slouching in her seat, with her chin on her chest; her head bowed low, a thin line of drool coming from her mouth, on realizing this Blake sharply elbowed Yang, causing the person in question to sit up straight in a shock, her eyes wide open, she quickly wiped the drool of her chin and tried to sit up straight

"Ms. Xiao Long I request that you take this hearing seriously." Nyla narrowed her eyes.

Yang grunted a non-response and rubbed her eyes, "Why the hell am I even here?" She grumbled, not realizing she said it out loud, and then she noticed the rather disapproving looks the rest of her team was giving her, "What?" she gave a shrug of confusion, and then it dawned on her, "I said that out loud didn't I?"

"Ms. Xiao Long, not even a week ago you were involved in a disastrous incident that claimed the lives of a dozen innocent civilians, wrecked major public infrastructure and then _walked away from it unscathed_ and untouched while a pile up ensued on the highway with civilians, _none of whom_ reported any other help besides emergency services. So if you'll _forgive_ my _impudence_ Ms. Xiao Long, I believe you know _the exact reason_ why you are here." The completely deadpan, almost bored tone in which Nyla said it, with her lip curled and twisted in disgust silenced the brawler in an instant. At that moment there was nothing ang would have loved to be able to do more than to shrink

"Headmaster Ozpin if this is the sort of ill-disciplined behavior that your academy promotes regularly surely even you must see why both you and they fail to inspire any real confidence in us." Whitemore smirked.

"Excuse me Councilor? While I agree that Team RWBY has proven to be rather eccentric amongst my students, they are no less disciplined than any one of my other trainee teams, perhaps they are exceptionally unlucky in that regard, but that is all there is to it."

"And yet this explains why they are the same team that was coincidentally involved in the incident at the docks earlier this year?" Whitemore shot back, "Perhaps further down the road we shall see them involved in one more incident with the White Fang, and perhaps this time it will involve more of Vale being destroyed!"

It was a rather sobering argument for Team RWBY, neither of them were immediately involved in the argument between their headmaster and the councilor, on the other hand not one of them would doubt that they were really in the wrong for this one, the fact that Ozpin was standing up for them and catching a severe amount of heat for actions which they had committed of their own accord greatly shamed them to a certain extent. Ruby was shifting very uncomfortably, it hurt to see their headmaster be abused like this, and she really wanted to speak up, to say something, heroes might be able to save the day, but they also took responsibility for their own actions right?

Right?

"Wait!" She suddenly found herself speaking up in the middle of the argument; all eyes were suddenly on her, "Erm…" She fidgeted nervously.

"Yes Ms. Rose? Do you have something you wish to add?" Nyla asked blandly.

"Ruby what're you doing?!" Weiss hissed out quietly.

"We can't just let the headmaster get all the crap like this!" Ruby whispered back.

"But we'll be endangering ourselves if you just open your mouth like that!"

"We can't just sit here and do nothing!"

"What can _you_ do?" Weiss asked, "What can _we_ do? We were in too far over our heads then! If you speak up now we might overstep ourselves again!" Weiss gripped Ruby's shoulder tightly, "Look, just trust in the headmaster, I'm sure he knows what he's doing."

"Perhaps the both of you would like to share the results of your discussion with the rest of us?" Nyla had a strange tone of bemusement in her voice.

"Her hand just slipped, that's all. I was just scolding her for making a scene." Weiss calmly stated, no one looked particularly convinced.

"Y-yeah, that's…that's all…" Ruby tried her best to say confidently with a cheeky smile, she lifted the cup to her lips and found that it was empty, "Erm..actually…" She put her hand up uncertainly.

"Yes Ms. Rose?"

"Could I get a refill? Please?" Ruby held her cup out in front of her, Nyla nodded to one of the guards, who walked over to Ruby and took the cup out of her hands and walked out of the room.

Blake rolled her eyes, "Don't drink so much now, we don't know how long this will go on for."

"Well I'm thirsty." Ruby replied.

"Well before we were so rudely interrupted…" Whitemore shot a look at the team, "As I was saying, I think this incident really highlights the headmaster's apparent inability to deal with his own students in a satisfactory manner. Furthermore, I honestly think that this is rather disgraceful, here we are about to host the Vytal Festival –by your own insistence I might add- with the rest of Remnant watching us, and here your students are playing silly heroics!"

"Councilor Whitemore." Nyla spoke up, trying to get his attention.

"And it is not this incident that is the first, as shown previously on multiple occasions we have already seen the results of your inability to control your own Academy's trainees, letting them constantly wander off on their own and-"

" _Councilor Whitemore_." Nyla raised her voice, loudly enough –but not a shout or cry- such that the whole room could hear her, forcefully enough that it silenced aforementioned councilor, turning all heads towards her, "Rather than _harp_ on, for some diversity in opinion, I think we should actually give a moment to hear from the headmaster?"

Whitemore fell silent, and Ozpin cleared his throat.

" _Thank you very much Councilor Nyla_ ," Making himself sound as exasperated as possible while nodding to her with a small smile, she remained impassive in response, Ruby suppressed a giggle, "Chairman, councilors, today I have heard much asked about my conduct my conduct in regards to the amount of control I exert over my trainees and whether or not either they or I remain fit to stand in our respective positions, I would now like to point out that these trainees are very much still in their youth, and who here can say that they have not made their mistakes in their youth? I take pride in the fact that before I send my students out into the world to protect and defend the innocent; they are at least able to have a semblance of normality before doing so."

"This is all well and good, but Headmaster I question your conviction on this matter, as far as I can tell these girls have chosen of their own free will to be huntresses each with their own reason. It then stands to reason that they should be treated in accordance with the willingness to take on the responsibility and burden of defending our people and our homes, not allow them to fool around like a bunch of teenagers who think being a huntress gives them a blanket pardon to do what pleases them!" Whitemore waved his hand and pointed out angrily, "These are the people who we entrust the future too! And you are suggesting we treat them like a bunch of children playing heroes and villains?" He asked with a cocked eyebrow, his expression burning holes in each of the trainee huntresses, "There are people out on the streets right now demanding culpability for this tragedy."

"And where does the culpability lie in this case? With a group of trainee huntresses trying to do the right thing? Or to your own incompetence in dealing with the White Fang such that they were able to _hide_ several pieces of stolen military equipment to be used against us? If Team RWBY had not discovered the plot then we could be in greater jeopardy now! And this when we have reports that of an increase in the number and density of Grimm around the kingdoms!"

Whitemore was clearing seething with anger, "Headmaster Ozpin, if you think that just because you-"

"Gentlemen! _Before we sidetrack ourselves any more than we already have._ " Nyla raised her voice above everyone else's for the second time, "Shall we get back to the main point? Team RWBY as far as I can ascertain, you maintain a position that your involvement in the incident was purely a coincidence, you stumbled onto a White Fang hideout, were caught in the act and were subsequently chased leading into the incident, am I correct?"

"That is correct ma'am." Weiss answered for her team.

"That said though, I would like to be absolutely sure on something," Nyla continued, "During the course of your little… _accident_ I trust that you handed over whatever additional information you may have gained to the appropriate authorities?"

And that question put Team RWBY into another bind, they did in fact know that there was yet another major White Fang operation somewhere down southeast of Vale; no one else but they knew, not even Ozpin knew yet and they had agreed to keep it amongst themselves for the time being, by the knowing looks that they exchanged with each other, all knew that if they were to reveal this now, they might end up in even worse straits. Besides there was still time to pursue the matter later, they would focus on getting through this hearing first with their skins intact.

At this point, Ruby's cup returned to the table, she muttered a thanks and only received a silent nod in reply.

Before any of them could speak, Ozpin spoke first, "I've already thoroughly debriefed them councilor you can rest assured-"

"I believe I was speaking to _them_ Ozpin, not you." Nyla swiftly cut him off.

"Ah, we didn't really learn anything in the first place ma'am." Blake spoke up now, "It didn't really take them long to find us out, and once we were found out the chase was on." She stated clearly.

"I see," Nyla nodded, "Now I suppose we should get on to more pressing issues now, namely your conduct during the battle itself." So saying she began to rearrange some of the papers in front of her while the rest of Team RWBY swallowed hard gulps.

This was it then, _the hard part_ to put it mildly.

"When you engaged in battle, were any of you aware of the surroundings as you did so?" She asked blithely.

"Ma'am although Blake and Sun were the first two to engage in battle, the rest of us took time before we were able to arrive. During that time the engagement had already spread far from where it had originally started."

"That was not answering the question Ms. Schnee," Nyla shook her head slightly, "What I meant was why was greater care not taken to ensure a limit to the damage that was dealt to the surrounding area?"

Before Weiss could continue, Blake chose to intercede, "Ma'am if I may, we were primarily concerned with our own safety at the time, so we took the fastest and easiest possible route to escape."

"Yes, but not quite the safest route I presume?" Nyla cocked an eyebrow as she leaned back into her seat and folded her arms.

"I…I beg your pardon ma'am? I don't-"

"In the entire time of your battle, not one of you apparently sought to limit the damage done not only to the surrounding area, but also to the resultant casualties caused by the engagement."

"With all due respect ma'am we were running and fighting for our very lives! You can't expect us to…to…" Blake stopped herself before she finished her sentence, realizing what was about to come out of her mouth.

 _You can't expect us to be able to save others and ourselves at the same time._ She completed it in her head.

"Can't expect you to… _what_ Ms. Belladonna?" Now it was Whitemore's turn, "Protect the people just like we have entrusted you to do so? Because you were too busy trying to play at being the heroine?"

Venom dripped from his tongue.

"As Ozpin was so kind as to remind us," He nodded with a smirk directed at the headmaster, "you are all still technically a bunch of teenagers, _gifted teenagers_ no doubt, but teenagers nonetheless, still prone to making mistakes and errors in judgement. This is a completely understandable and forgivable fact of life…were it not for the fact that we as the people entrust you with our lives so that we may sleep peacefully at night, and how can we do so if actions like these are being committed?"

Blake was silent.

"Which brings us back to the original question Ms. Belladonna." Nyla leaned forward, folding her arms on the desk, "How did you stumble onto a potential White Fang plot…and yet completely fail to notify anyone else other than your own team?"

"I…I…" Blake stammered out, unable to respond.

"I doubt if you did not have ample time to alert any form of higher authority whether it be the Beacon faculty or perhaps the Vale Police Department, allowing perhaps a more appropriate response from the appropriate authorities to have been developed to counter this threat as opposed to having a team of inexperienced trainee huntresses trying to take down a criminal organization."

 _We wouldn't have to if only you'd just do your job and take them down in the first place!_ Blake wanted to scream at them, but otherwise remained silent and tried to maintain a straight face.

It apparently failed as Whitemore took the opportunity to speak again, "Perhaps this is due to a lack of trust in higher authorities? Now why would that be?"

 _Yes, yes it does._ Blake answered in her head.

"Councilor where you going with this?" Ozpin had been silent up until now, his tone was more measured than before though.

"I am speaking to your students headmaster."

" _Evidently_ ," Ozpin did not hide his eye roll, "I thought this hearing was about their actions?"

"And we are getting there, as soon as we find out what exactly they were thinking when they went about with this foolish course of action and how we can go about resolving this mindset."

"I'm fairly certain it was already stated that it was the merest of a coincidence."

"And yet not one person aside from them and their two other friends apparently knew about this? If it is true that it was a mere coincidence that some trainees stumbled onto some nefarious plot, then it stands to reason that either they have committed a dangerously reckless action by not informing anyone else, or that they deliberately kept it to themselves in order to try for a chance at the glory of taking down criminals as trainees."

Team RWBY felt a yawning pit in their stomach as he said that, the councilor had no idea just how close to the truth he had come, and if Team RWBY had their way he would never find out.

Ever.

Ozpin fell silent and let Whitemore continue, Team RWBY shot glances at him, and get he remained stoic and unresponsive to any other stimulus. At this point, Whitemore chose to open his binder and begin flicking through it, "Now back to the main question, I have read through the records and histories of some of the huntresses," He looked up from the file briefly, his gaze fixing on both Ruby and Yang, making the both of them exceedingly uncomfortable.

"While the records for Ms. Schnee are of course, nothing by exemplary as far as I can tell," Weiss let herself a small smile for that, "and the records for Ms. Belladonna are _remarkably_ clean…" Blake flinched but exuded a sigh of relief, it looked like Ozpin's work had come through for her after all, "I have noticed a few… _somethings_ in the record." He almost grew a devilish smile.

Once again the team was stumped, where on earth was he going with this?

"Especially for you Ms. Xiao Long," He clicked his tongue a few times, "I have here a statement from a club owner," He held up a piece of paper, and immediately Yang went rigid as rock, Blake noticed that she was gripping both of her fists under the table on her lap and grinding her lower jaw with her face set in a tight grimace, "Testifying that some time before your entry into Beacon, you entered his club looking for information on the whereabouts of a person, when the club owner denied knowledge, you attempted to first seduce him, and then after that…" He trailed off as he turned the paper around, "as far as I can tell you destroyed his club in a fit of anger, what can do have to say about that?"

"…I fail to see how this is relevant to this hearing." Yang said tersely, barely biting back a snarl.

"Oh really?" Whitemore lifted an eyebrow, "Because to my eyes it shows a pretty record of a history of violent tendencies and responses, according to the report you were bailed out by your uncle Qrow Branwen who also paid for the damages himself."

Unfortunately, no one close to Yang could really refute that accusation, not even Ruby could really say otherwise, besides being a bit of a tease and a shameless flirt, few who knew Yang would outright disagree whenever the blonde brawler's anger was brought up as a potential issue. It was not necessarily an often occurrence, just that it could be a considerably frightening experience when it did occur.

"It was one time." Yang replied.

"Yang, don't fall for his provocation." Blake hissed as quietly as she dared.

"I doubt so Ms. Xiao Long, because when I dug deeper into your history, I found that there have been multiple reports of other similar incidents in which a certain blonde girl wearing gauntlets has been looking for a specific piece of information apparently relating to her missing mother, and I don't just mean your birth mother, I mean your stepmother as well."

A small gasp came out from Ruby.

In that moment, there was nothing that Yang wanted to do more than to cave the councilor's skull in with her fists, still for the sake of her Team, she grit her teeth and bit her tongue to fight down a comeback.

"Such a rather... _difficult_ history with your family, parental abandonment, makes me wonder if there are perhaps ulterior reasons for such gung-ho recklessness on your part?" The sheer smugness on Whitemore's face, that arrogant smirk on that man's face, combined with the oppressive atmosphere and the tumultuous memories that those words brought up triggered something within Yang that was not going to be suppressed no matter how hard she might have tried.

"You…" Yang dropped her face, her bangs covering her eyes as they shone red; she clenched her fists tightly under the table, upper and lower jaws grinding together.

"Yang!" Blake gripped her hand to try to calm her down.

" _Fucking bastard!_ " She yelled, shoving Blake to the side, she leapt right over the table and made a beeline for Councilman Whitemore, she barely got one-and-a-half steps before something tackled her into the ground in a flutter of rose petals.

"Let go of me you-!" She turned to grab her assailant, and only stopped midway when she realized she was about to grab hold of Ruby by her head.

"Yang calm down! You're not helping the-"

Ruby was brutally cut off by a chorus of clicks sounding out from around them.

Both sisters looked around them, a plethora of armed guards surrounded them both, they faced black gun barrels that were shoved in their faces, safeties flicked off, fingers on the triggers, ready to shoot at the first sign of an errant, slightly-less-than-stable trainee huntress trying anything remotely destructive with them.

Both remained stock still as the world seemed to slow to a crawl around them, whispers, cries and words began circulating all around the room as the atmosphere and tension went through the roof.

"She's a crazy bitch!" Went one cry

"Lock her up!" Went another.

"She's nuts,"

"I don't wanna be here,"

"Let's get out of here before she kills someone,"

"Whoa that's a real snap,"

"Didn't know one of the outstanding eight was so fucked up."

"How the hell did she even become a huntress with that temper?"

"What do you expect? She's just some teenager with a gun,"

"Hey!" Both turned their attention back to the guardsmen surrounding them, "I said put your hands in the air!" Eyes wide, lip quivering, teeth chattering, body trembling, Ruby slowly stood up and got off Yang and raised her hands into the air.

"Hey!" Weiss called out, "What the heck are you doing? She just saved your life you nitwit!" And then she too was set upon by armed guards, "What the- let go of me! Don't you know who I am?!" She shouted indignantly, right beside her Blake was just off the floor when she too was set upon, she gave an almost cat-like hiss of anger as she was roughly forced to her knees but realized that there was no way she was going to fight her way out of this, not in a room full of civilians.

Ruby was roughly pulled away to the side stumbling and pushed to her knees by a pair of guards, her eyes full of fear and terror and she glanced from side to side, trying to look for anyone she recognized in the blur, she was nearly in tears as the guards forced her to keep her head low with her hands on the back of her head, preventing her from seeing anything but a blur of uniforms surrounding her older sister. She had no idea what to do or what was going to happen to them, there was no plan for this, this was not a fight with the Grimm where she could go to town with her baby Crescent Rose, instead here the law itself was turning on her and her team.

And for what? Because she had decided to try to take down a criminal and a terrorist group that she had no business tangling with, some part of her deep down did realize that it was a rather dangerous course of action that might lead to problems down the line, but if she had known that she would end up on the wrong side of the law? Being thrown about and disparaged by the very same people that she had sworn to protect?

She would probably have given a little more thought to the whole "youngest Huntresses to single-handedly taking down a corrupt organization conspiring against the Kingdom of Vale" concept, since as it turned out, her team was _way_ out of their league.

 _C'mon think Ruby think, there's got to be a way out of this!_ She thought as she was haphazardly pulled to her feet with her wrists bound in plastic cuffs, looking around at the remainder of her team, they were all similarly restrained as they were hauled to their feet, Weiss was looking at defiant as ever, Blake looked resigned to her fate, Yang meanwhile was still struggling.

"Yang stop struggling," Blake called out, and then grit her teeth and frowned when the brawler failed to comply, "You're only making things _worse_!" She raised her voice in anger.

Yang's head flicked up to look at Blake, cold, aloof Blake who normally never raised her voice against anything _or_ anyone was now glaring daggers at her, a demand and a plea clear in her eyes for Yang to cease and desist before she created even more trouble for everyone. The red slowly faded out of Yang's eyes as Blake focused her gaze on her, the Faunus girl shaking her head from side to side as if to say ' _please_ don't do it'.

With that last action, Yang finally relaxed long enough for the guards to cuff _both_ her arms and legs on account of her struggling.

Ruby's head flicked away, her eyes searching desperately for anyone to come to their aid even as she was pushed away with the rest of her team, where was her uncle? Or her father? Or even the Beacon staff? And then her eyes fixed on another person.

Jaune Arc.

He and his team were standing off to the side looking rather lost and aimless, their faces twisted in a muted horror at what was happening. Jaune stood in front of all of them, watching Team RWBY get taken away by the armed guards, helpless to do anything as their friends were led away.

Ruby wanted to call out to him, plead for his help, ask him to use his position to call off the guards and get them to safety, but as they looked at each other and she looked into his eyes, she knew that at that point…

There was nothing he could do for them.

"No…" She whispered, so quietly no one could hear her, surely there was some kind of help coming, something his family could do? He was a prince right? His grandfather was the king of vale! Sure he was nothing but a figurehead but that must have counted for something in these parts right?

Right?

As she was pushed and shoved forward together with the rest of her team towards the doors of the room, she realized in that moment that he was just as powerless as she was now, there was not going to be a happy ending here, they were not going to get saved at the last minute by some golden light of miracles from the sky that-

With a loud *BANG* the doors to the room were thrown open, the entire room went quiet as a man dressed in suit bent over and put his hands on his knees, gasping and panting hard

"I'm sorry for the interruption sir! But I just came to announce that His Majesty the King of Vale is about to land at the Vale City Airport!" He shouted out as loud as he could.

Silence reigned as everyone looked at everyone else, and then…

"YAHOO!" Ruby squealed and cheered loudly, "We're saved guys!" She turned to her team with a bright smile on her face, they gave her weird looks, but she did not give a damn about that, her prayers had apparently been answered, "We're saved! We're saved! The king is here guys! He's gonna save us and we're all gonna be heroes! WOOHOO!" Ruby cheered excitedly, and then she spotted Jaune again, so this was what he had planned all along? Bringing the big guns all the way to Vale?! What a brilliant, magnificent man to have for a friend! Eleventh hour rescues did exist!

In her excitement, she completely missed the stunned and bewildered expression on his face.

 _Marina, uncle...what did you do?_ He wondered with wide eyes as he watched Ruby wave at him excitedly.

"Hey Jaune!" Ruby bounced on her heels excitedly as she grinned from ear to ear, "You didn't say-"

"RUBY!" Blake cried out, trying to silence the girl before she accidentally said something she was not supposed to.

"What?" Ruby stopped bouncing and turned to look at Blake quizzically, Blake snapped her head to the side and nodded towards the rest of the room, all of whom were looking at her in complete silence with strange looks on their faces.

"…What?" Ruby returned their questioning looks.

"Put them in a holding cell for now, we'll deal with this _after_ we see to _his majesty_." Councilor Whitemore almost spat out the last two words in disgust.

Ruby's smile vanished.

* * *

"Whoa, it feels like forever since we've been in here." Blake noted bemusedly.

"It only feels that way because of a certain pair of sisters." Weiss blandly replied, looking at the Faunus, "One needs to go to the toilet every quarter of an hour," She jerked her thumb at Ruby, who pouted and stuck her tongue out in response, "The other is a raging maniac." She gestured to Yang, who continued writing on the floor and grunting in pain as she struggled to release her cuffs.

"I _still_ need to go to the toilet by the way." Ruby remarked.

* * *

 **Phew! That's all done!**

 **I wanted to do the hearing first because it made the most sense to me, first comes the investigative hearing and then after that comes the prosecution in court... _IF_ it gets that far, I might not let it go that far though, King ex Machina aside, I don't think I can get that far, I think I already made this chapter a bit of a stretch, I don't know if I can continue.**

 **As far as everyone knows, RWBY just happened to do a thing, and most definitely were not trying to bring down the White Fang and Roman at all, no sirree, after all in canon they kept it a secret all the way until that thing with Cinder and the tower during the dance**

 **I really wanted to have at least one mudslinging guy to just throw everything and then some at RWBY and the headmaster, deliberately nitpicking here and there. If anyone remarks on any of the good points he made about their actions, that's kind of the point because after all RWBY aren't exactly clean in the incident, and Whitemore kind of hates Ozpin and so does his best to make Ozpin's life as difficult as possible, first trying to make the hearing about Ozpin, and then when that doesn't work he goes after the students instead to get at Ozpin.**

 **Cliche politicking? Because why not?**

 **As the saying goes, we are our own worst enemy, and for Team RWBY, I felt that having Yang explode from the one mudslinging councilor seemed fairly appropriate to cause their current predicament, I also felt Blake and Weiss as the two most 'mature' -so to speak- members of team should be taking the lead, on the other hand I wanted to really pressure Yang since she is the one who already has a record of losing her shit and going to town when she gets angry. And so it seemed natural that in the course of all this she should lose it at some point and try to off someone, which of course lands the whole team in the drink.**

 **No omake! Because the chapter is already so long and because I can't think of anything.**

 **That's it until sometime mid-August! I appreciate all your reviews, faves and follows!**


	26. Your Majesty?

**So one day after I post the last chapter I decide to check my mail an- HOLY CARPFISH! _Everyone_ wants Team RWBY to just go ahead and suffer like a bunch of ignominous bitches. Like I _know_ Team RWBY did some shit but the whole point of the hearing was to just demonstrate that they in reality did not have a single clue exactly what it was that they were getting into and had no idea what exactly was going on during the hearing. Also that Ruby might have gotten a little too excited about things. I really didn't expect everyone to get up in arms about it.**

 **Seriously guys this is an AU fic but its not going to be _so_ AU that the main characters get completely shunted to one side and told the fuck the hell off while Jaune basically does _everything_ and makes _every_ single other character completely irrelevant to the plot.**

 **There's like a million of those fics out there if you're looking for that.**

 **Anyway this is another long-ass chapter, hopefully its not overstretched but I hope you enjoy it.**

* * *

Team JNPR of Beacon Academy quickly exited the room and watched as their friends were taken away, helpless to do anything to assist them as Team RWBY was led away with quite a lot of noise following them.

"Well that was…" Pyrrha started and then stopped, at a lost as to how to describe what had just transpired in the room.

" _That was fucked up._ " Nora completed, Ren shot her a look which made her shrug and throw her arms out to the side, "What? It was and you all know it!" She pouted.

Ren raised one hand and looked like he wanted to protest, but then seemed to hit some kind of realization and let his hand fall while shaking his head, "Well that was certainly…erm…" He scrunched up his face trying to be tactful.

" _Disastrous_ is the word you're looking for." Jaune completed again with a loud sigh, he wrung his hands and pushed out his lower lip, in-between finding out the King of Vale –and his maternal grandfather- was in Vale and nearly getting revealed by Ruby, he was kind of lost as to what he ought to be feeling.

Anger? For Ruby nearly revealing him like that?

Elation? That the King was here to aid them?

Or perhaps…

Perhaps he ought to have been feeling more than a little cautious and suspicious, after all not just a few days ago both his uncle and his sister had shot down a plea from him to intervene on the part of Team RWBY. They had been especially firm to him on that part of the conversation that they had, so why then was the King of Vale out of Avalon? Jaune had only met his grandfather a small handful of times in his entire life; he did not make it a habit to visit the Royal Palace at Avalon or really try to communicate with either the king or the queen.

So with that in mind, what was the King doing here?

There was not anything in particular that Jaune could think off that would drag the elderly King out of the considerable comfort of the palace in Avalon and into Vale. Maybe the King had decided all on his own to come to help and in doing so override the orders given by both his son and granddaughter? Or maybe he just wanted to take a walk? Who knew after all, he was supposedly getting on in years these days and was no longer as right in the head as he once was.

Or rather that was what Jaune imagined it to be.

He was taken out of his thoughts when Pyrrha tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention, "What do we do now Jaune?"

Jaune leaned against the nearby wall as the crowd and the chaos moved away further down the hall, "I think we should all-" He paused when he looked up and just noticed Headmaster Ozpin exit the hallway, hot on the heels of Councilor Nyla who was already some distance down the hallway.

"Can you guys…" He turned back to them, "Just wait here for a moment? I want to go talk to the headmaster."

"Why don't we just follow you?" Nora asked with an inquisitive look, it was clearly a viewpoint shared by the rest of the team as they were giving him weird looks.

"I was thinking you can go and get snacks outside while I talk with the headmaster." Jaune tried to deflect the question; he really needed to have a private conversation with Ozpin, "I think I saw a pancake and waffle stand outside." He tried pointing out.

They all stared at him.

"Really Jaune…?" Nora looked at him with narrowed eyes and a most unamused expression on her face.

 _Well that didn't work…_ A drop of sweat rolled down Jaune's forehead, _Great, before I get a rebellion on my hands…damage control…NOW._

"Look you guys…" He lowered his head down and gave an awkward smile, "I really need to talk to the Headmaster on my own, so I was just suggesting you grab some snacks and drinks while waiting for me because I will be _right back_ ok?" And then just like that Jaune turned on a dime and immediately walked away as fast as possible before they could say anything else to him.

He quickly followed the headmaster and the councilwoman but remained at a far distance, overhearing them as they walked quickly down the hallway

"Nyla?" Ozpin called out as he walked as quickly as he could, despite being taller than the councilwoman he has a hard time keeping up with her as they rounded a corner, "Nyla!" He called out more angrily this time, finally stopping the woman in her tracks as she turned to look at him and he finally caught up to her.

Jaune hid behind the corner to listen in on the conversation.

"What do you want Ozpin?" She asked tersely with no small amount of irritation.

"What on Remnant was that?" He demanded angrily, "I thought I could trust you to support me, and now I find you heading the same committee that not only intends to completely eviscerate a team of trainee huntresses, but also appears to be out for my blood!" He grit his teeth and faced her directly

"Oh please Ozpin," Nyla scoffed and straightened her glasses, "If I hadn't been on that committee, you and your students would have faced something more akin to a _firing squad_ rather than a proper hearing," She rolled her eyes, "All they're looking for is a person to shift the blame to and then crucify that person as a scapegoat, they would've found a way to dismiss you and throw the whole of Team RWBY into prison if they could."

"So I'm supposed to accept that this is all for my own benefit then?" Ozpin threw his arms out to the sides before letting them fall, his expression rather disgruntled as he glared at the councilwoman, who remained completely impassive under his gaze.

"I did my level best to ease your students into the hearing by starting off slowly, I had hoped that they would do their level best to prepare themselves for it," She sighed, "But unfortunately I guess it was too much to hope that a bunch of children could have prepared themselves for an adult's work." She turned away for a moment and stood back on one leg before looking back at Ozpin.

"They're a bunch of children like you said," Ozpin waved his hand angrily, "And we expect to be capable of thinking and reasoning and acting like adults?"

"Well then perhaps _someone_ should have ingrained in their heads the understanding that they have responsibilities to uphold." Nyla rolled her eyes and shook her head, "Perhaps the first thing _someone_ should've taught them was that if they wanted to be graduate and stand on the same level as the adults, they had better grow up fast before they…" She paused for a moment and pushed out her lower lip, " _Get eaten_."

"Is it my fault that the council perpetuates a culture of hero-worshipping whose only result is an endless cycle of sending more and more young men and women to their deaths _every year_ so that they can inspire _more young men and women_ to their deaths?!" Ozpin nearly shouted at the councilwoman.

Surprisingly, Nyla flinched and grimaced at his sudden outburst, "It's…" She trailed off and looked distant for a moment, "A necessary sacrifice, you yourself know this to be true," She locked eyes with Ozpin, "the Grimm encroach on our borders every single day, never knowing where they come from, all we can do is pile and stack the mountains of bodies higher every single day, isn't it your job to make each body last as long as possible before we add them to the list of fallen heroes?"

"Yes," Ozpin begun slowly with a low growl, "It's just as you said," He straightened up so that he was looking down on her, "Make each body last as long as possible. Then explain to me why the council wants to take down a group of bodies that could spend their time better by propping up that wall rather than in some prison cell?"

"Perhaps instead of running around trying to solve internal issues on their own that group of bodies should've just focused on manning the wall and not on trying to catch a bunch of damn terrorists!" Nyla finally blew up and threw her hands into the air, turning away from Ozpin and folding her arms across her chest, she turned her head to look at him with a dark glare on her face.

The mood was shifting drastically.

" _I tried Ozpin_ ," She growled beneath her breath, "I _tried_ to be patient with them, I _tried_ to be easy on them, I _tried_ to give allowance for their behavior, I tried and yet they still lost it while the rest of Vale was watching, and I even tried to rein in the more hostile committee members when it came to you," Nyla folded her arms, "Perhaps Whitemore was going too far with his remarks but attacking the committee isn't worth just a mere reproach." She leaned forward and narrowed one eye, "A little bit of _thanks on your part_ would be appreciated."

"Well then I must thank you councilor for the ease by which the hearing was conducted," Sarcasm dripped off of every word, "Thank you also for the respect that your own committee showed to my students, choosing to deliberately bring up family to try and incite a reaction from them, quite a series of tactics used there."

"Really? Respect? That's all you've got for me?" Nyla's raised one eyebrow and lowered the other, "Because all I saw today was a bunch of _immature_ and frankly _unrepentant_ children who don't seem to have properly grasped on to the fact that their reckless actions led to a tragedy, the only person of any real note was the Schnee girl, though that's only something to be expected rather than something to be applauded." She scoffed and tilted her head back, "It makes me wonder why she isn't the team leader rather than the little girl you have on instead."

"Political savvy does not necessarily translate into tactical prowess on the field of battle." Ozpin grunted, "I judged Ms. Rose to be the more capable, and she has yet to disappoint me."

"Not even in this instance?"

"No, she's still only fifteen, give her some credit for _only_ being childish rather than doing something else silly."

"You mean like her elder sister?"

Ozpin could not say anything to that.

"…Fine then, I won't question your methods, your Academy is yours to do as you please, just please do take note in the near future the rest of the council may not take quite so kindly to you should you continue to try to defend your students the way that you have, although I must admit getting the King to come all the way down here…that must've been quite something, what did you promise him in return?"

"Nothing, I didn't call him down here." Nyla seemed rather startled by that assertion from the way her brows jumped suddenly, her own eyes searched through the headmaster's own and yet, she could not find a single thing that might suggest he was lying, finding nothing she took a moment to stroke her chin and appeared deep in thought.

Sighing in resignation, she finally responded, "So it seems you have other friends in high places after all. Well whatever it is you have up your sleeve Ozpin, you'd better play it now, after Ms. Xiao Long's little outburst, there isn't much time left for your trainees."

"So I guess it's too much to count on any other assistance?" Ozpin grit his teeth.

"Too much…and too late," Nyla shrugged, "Like I said I've tried and done my best already, the rest is up to you, and now if you'll excuse me I think I left something back in the room, I'll see you later Ozpin, and that is all." She walked right past Ozpin who could only watch her go and clench his fists in response.

Hearing the footsteps coming closer and closer, Jaune instinctively backed away from the corner just as Nyla rounded it, although he froze for a moment, the councilwoman only gave the barest of an acknowledgement of his presence with a single look and passed right by him without a word and continued walking down the hallway. Jaune breathed a sigh of relief as the sharp click of heels passed away dimly into the distance along with the woman that wore them.

"I do believe that it's unbecoming of a prince to eavesdrop on others, it's not polite you know?" Ozpin's voice rang out, Jaune squeaked in response and slowly poked his head out and around the corner, and found himself looking right into the eyes of the headmaster who was walking over to him.

"Eh hehe…well…I just wanted to see you for a moment sir." Jaune had an embarrassed smile on his face.

"Yes well, am I to presume that his majesty's arrival is your own doing your highness?" Ozpin gave a small smile, which fell off when the prince shook his head.

"No, I was told not by the Crown Prince and my sister not to expect anything," He cast his eyes downward, "I have no idea what the King is doing here either."

Ozpin stroked his chin thoughtfully, "Do you and the King know each other well?"

"Uh…" Jaune fidgeted with his fingers, "Not really, I've seen him and the Queen a few times myself but…no…I can't say he and I really know each other."

"Hmm, then perhaps it's better to go and find out why he is here you, I myself might go to see him when I get the opportunity, I have a few things to clear up first though, where is your Team?"

"Just over there…actually sir…" Jaune grasped his hands behind his back and looked right at Ozpin.

"Yes, is there a problem your highness?"

"Do you…do you think I should tell them?" He asked hesitantly, "It's just…I feel kinda bad leaving them out of the loop like this all the time, I think they're starting to hate me for it." Jaune let his shoulders sag with a glum expression on his face.

Ozpin furrowed his brow in response and rubbed his forehead, "That is entirely your own prerogative your highness, if you feel that they can be trusted then by all means, you've trusted Ruby, Blake and Sun so far and they have yet to fail you have they?" Ozpin saw Jaune's objection coming and quickly waved it away, "Except of course for Ms. Rose's near miss just a little while ago, they have done fine have they not?"

"Well sure, it's just that if I tell my own team, I don't think my family's going to be very happy with me…" Jaune sighed, "Man sometimes I wish I wasn't a prince, maybe then I could get a proper set of friendships, heck maybe even a relationship wouldn't be out of the cards." He kicked one foot against the floor lifelessly.

Ozpin chuckled, "This is coming from a prince who has surrounded himself with all sorts of females and _only_ _one_ other male, without context anyone would think that you were trying to build a harem of some sort."

Jaune snickered and inhaled when Ozpin said that, "It would be the ultimate harem! One consisting of ultra-protective huntresses defending their beloved prince!" Jaune threw his arms out in a grandiose gesture before letting his arms fall back down, "But the House of Vale would never accept such a playboy prince; they'd probably disown me forever."

Ozpin laughed with him, "But I think we should go and see your own team now so that we can give them assurance to your own whereabouts." Jaune nodded and turned to lead the way.

They walked together in silence until they found Team (J)NPR right where Jaune had left them more or less, they were more or less still standing around and not doing much, but all immediately became more attentive when they saw their leader returning with the headmaster.

"Professor!" Nora waved at him excitedly; Ozpin merely returned the greeting with a smile and nod.

"If you don't mind me asking sir," Ren started, "What's going to happen to Team RWBY now?"

Ozpin sighed, "Unfortunately Mr. Lie, at this moment they are most likely being taken to a holding cell somewhere else where they will be made to wait until His Majesty returns to the royal enclaves, it's quite likely the council wants to tidy up and present a clean image to the King lest the House of Vale rub it in the council's faces that the Royal Enclaves –ostensibly an extension of Vale- are doing far better than the city of Vale is." He explained thoroughly.

"What should we do now?" Pyrrha asked.

"There's nothing much you can really do except return to Beacon for now," And then a curious twinkle appeared in his eye as he turned to Jaune, "Unless the resident Armorican would like to take you to see the King?"

 _Oh great, don't tell me that was your plan all along…_ Jaune's eyes widened as they all focused on him.

Nora zipped right up to him and grabbed him by the shoulders, "Really Jaune-y? Could you do that?!" Her eyes were wide with elation as she shook him to and fro roughly.

"W-e-e-ell t-th-ats…." Jaune tried to free himself from Nora's iron-cast grip on him.

"That would…certainly be interesting…" Ren stroked his chin and nodded along.

"Hmm, I wouldn't mind I guess?" Even Pyrrha looked rather thoughtful, now being a rather famous person in her own Kingdom, she had had the pleasure of meeting with some of the council members herself, on the other hand it would be a whole new thing for her to meet _actual_ royalty.

Discounting the actual royalty that was her partner of course, but she did not know about that.

" _Regardless of all that_ ," Ozpin raised his voice to speak clearly, as apparently Team JNPR were just awed by the thought of having a King in their midst, "My earnest apologies to you Ms. Nikos, Mr. Lie and Ms. Valkyrie, but I need Jaune to do something important for me first of all and so I shall be forced to take him out of your care for the moment and send him on his way."

All of them had rather surprised looks on their faces, their eyes flicking back and forth between their leader and the headmaster, asking for an explanation from either as to this turn of events.

Before Jaune could say anything though, Ozpin was way ahead of him, "Don't worry now, I just need Jaune's assistance with a little thing that I need help with," He then turned to Jaune, "You'd better hurry up now, I wouldn't keep them waiting."

"Yes sir," Jaune replied and gave an awkward smile at the rest of his confused team, "Look guys, I promise on my word that I'll make it up to you, but right now I really have to go." And with that he quickly walked through them and away from them, "I'll see you later back at Beacon!" He tried to smile and wave as he turned back for one last time.

He had to, if he had turned back to look at them anymore, he doubted he would have been able to look at their rather forlorn faces without cursing himself into oblivion.

 _Ah stupid stupid!_ _I really should tell them one of these days; these secrets are going to be the end of me._ Jaune growled in his head as he sent of a text to Gravelyn asking for information on where the King would be staying while in Vale as he walked out of the building to hail a taxi.

* * *

 _BREAKING NEWS_

 _We have just received official confirmation from the House of Vale that His Majesty the King of Vale will indeed be arriving shortly at the Vale City Airport along with an armed escort of Royal Protectors. At the moment it remains unclear as to what exactly the purpose of His Majesty's visit will be and what this means for the hearing being conducted on the trainees involved in the Highway 42 incident._

 _The committee has so far called a halt to the hearing, the team designated "RWBY" has been taken into custody following an attempt by one of its team members to assault the committee for reasons believed to be related to the conduct of one of the committee members during the course of the hearing._

 _We go now to a live broadcast at the Vale City airport._

" _Lisa I'm now right outside the terminal leading onto the runway, as we can see in the background the Royal Family's private airship is just taxiing this way, and just over there in the public area in the terminal you can see a large crowd has gathered many people are very excited and curious, they know that the Royal Family doesn't appear in public much, they know that this is going to be a pretty big event, it might even be a once in a lifetime thing so they all want to catch a glimpse of their King."_

 _And how are the Vale authorities handling this new arrangement?_

" _I just spoke to the head of the Airport Police Division, the surprise arrival did cause quite a ruckus, they're trying to get things under control now, the Royal airship has actually forced several other airships to remain in the air while they try to sort out this whole mess. Actually just now there was a surprising development, a team from the Royal Protectors actually appeared…almost out of nowhere, they're taking charge now of the security arrangements working together with the Airport Police, setting up a passageway, marking out the lines, helping to perform crowd control, I haven't had the opportunity to speak with them yet or get any more details but I think we can be assured that this is going to be a momentous event for Vale."_

 _Has there been any word on the King's purpose in Vale?_

" _It's hard to say Lisa, like I said I still haven't been able to get in or err…talk with any official yet, everyone's sort of remaining a little hush hush about this, but we have had a few unconfirmed rumors that the King might take up temporary residence at the Raffle House which was the old seat of the King before the Vale Succession War."_

A short while later, Jaune found himself just outside the Raffle House, once the original Royal Palace where the King and Queen lived and now a relatively prestigious hotel in the heart of Vale, and where the King would be staying for the duration of his visit to Vale City. At the moment there were teams of armed policemen and a number of Protectors milling about, trying to secure the area and talking to each other over radios, walking here and there rapidly, none of them spared more than a passing glance at the teenager in a black hoodie and blue jeans slowly walking through the chaos towards the main entrance of the hotel.

 _Hmm, I wonder what Vulcan and Allen think of this._ He thought to himself as he walked while observing his surroundings.

He need not have worried so much, at the moment the former was busying herself yelling at one trainee for breaking a particularly important cog in his weapon's transforming mechanism and the latter was in the air supervising another trainee pilot.

"Hey Jaune!" A voice called out, Jaune turned his head and saw Gravelyn –now dressed in the traditional green short-coat with yellow buttons and black pants- waving at him as he approached.

Jaune grinned, finally he had found a friendly face, "Hey Gravelyn, is His Majesty going to be here soon?"

"Yep," Gravelyn looked at his watch, "Should be within the hour, hopefully if traffic remains stable we should have the King secure in the house within the next hour or so… _hopefully_."

"Do you think anything's going to happen?" Jaune asked.

Gravelyn's expression took a dark turn, "Let's hope not, this is a surprise visit so I can't imagine the White Fang has anything planned up their sleeves, but if they do…" He smirked.

"We'll cut them down like the filthy swine they are." He tapped Typhoon on one side with a dark smile on his face.

Jaune merely nodded at that, still he could not help but feel worried, after all there were plenty of things that could go wrong, if the King ended up injured or wounded or badly or _worse_ …

He shook those thoughts out of his head.

"Well I suppose it would be prudent for you to just find a place to sit down, kick back, take a break and chill for a while, the hotel lounge should be available, and don't worry," He made a sly wink, "I already told the other Protectors to expect you and that you were in disguise, so you don't have to worry about a single thing." He grinned.

He turned out to be quite right, as Jaune made his way to the lounge to wait for the King's arrival, he passed by several Protectors, some gave a low bow of their head in a gentle acknowledgement of his status, others just gave a knowing smile or smirk and moved on without a word. Jaune prepared a cup of Earl Grey and took a seat on a couch in the mostly empty lounge to wait for the King.

He stayed in the lounge when he did arrive with a rather large crowd of reporters and press officers following him, Jaune paid no heed to any of them and waited for Gravelyn to give him the all clear. That took a surprising amount of time, allowing Jaune to count the number of designs on the ceiling, the couch, and the floor rug before Gravelyn came to get him.

"Ok, we cleared them out though they're still stacking up outside, this way please _your highness_." He mumbled the last part just audibly enough for Jaune to hear as he gestured for the prince to follow him

"Dahlia? Daniel?" Gravelyn turned from one to the other, they were a set of twins that he recognized as being the protectors assigned to the King for the current shift.

Both saluted and stood at attention, "His Majesty has been expecting your presence your highness." The girl answered, looking directly at Jaune.

"Well in you go then, so sorry I can't stay and chat, I have matters to attend to, good luck your highness." Gravelyn gave a low bow and held one hand out in the direction of the door, taking this as a signal Dahlia rapped her knuckles on the door before opening it a small way.

"His Highness Prince Jean is here your Majesty." She said, a muffled voice answered, and Dahlia opened the door wider and turned to Jaune, "His Majesty is ready, if you would your highness?" She gestured inside.

"See you around your highness," Gravelyn bowed again and walked off. Jaune watched him go for a moment before he took a deep breath to calm himself, this was it then, he was going to meet the King on his own, no uncle or big sister to help him here, just himself and whatever he brought with him.

God if he was not a nervous wreck.

He nodded to both the protectors and walked right into the room, the door closed behind him and he found himself alone in the rather large and luxurious looking room, the floor was nicely carpeted, windows that opened out onto the street in front of the hotel, it had a king-sized bed right at one side of the room, in the middle of the room were a set of chairs and a table, and on the far side of the room to Jaune's left.

A somewhat short and elderly fellow sharply dressed in a suit and tie, he was clearly balding, currently he was crouched over what looked like a tabletop that had a tray with a teapot and teacups on it at one side.

This then could only be the King of Vale himself.

Jaune fell to one knee and bowed his head low, "Your majesty." He said, even though he was trying his best not to show the nervousness, anyone else could have been able to tell that he was visibly tense.

"Oh do get off the floor Jean, you look darned ridiculous trying to kneel in that outfit." Jaune swallowed nervously and stood up, the King did not appear to have even turned around at that, instead he seemed more concerned with…filling a teapot? Jaune took a moment to check himself.

 _Of course._ He sighed inwardly, a black hoodie and blue jeans, he looked nothing like the part, and more like some teenager pulled off the street and stuffed into the room with the man before him.

He wondered if he ought to have asked for a change in clothes before this meeting.

"Ah good it's ready!" The King's voice drew him back into reality; he stood up straight and took the tray with him towards the table, "Do sit down and have a little drink." He gestured to the chairs as he set the tray down on the table, Jaune gingerly made his way over to the chair and sat down as gently as he could right in front of the King as he poured out the tea.

"Have a drink Jean." Although he was smiling, the tone that was said in was so dry and flat that Jaune thought he was actually going to draw out all the moisture in him. Well he could feel himself start to sweat a little anyway.

"T-thank you your majesty." He tried his best to smile and take the teacup slowly in his hands; it was then that he noticed something else about his hands.

His hands were shaking.

 _When_ had his hands started shaking?

"Do be careful dear boy," There was a sudden spring in his voice; "I just boiled it."

"Uh…of course your majesty." Forcing his hands to a halt as best as he could, he lifted the tea to his lips and took a sip, flinching just a little from the heat before setting the cup back down.

Silence reigned between them, Jaune wondered if it was prudent for him to try to start a conversation or if he ought to have waited for the King –who was looking through his scroll- to start. A few minutes later neither of them had done much except sip from slowly emptying cups of tea, and so it was that Jaune chose to try breaking the ice first.

"Your Majesty…if you don't mind me asking…" Jaune pushed out his lower lip and paused for a moment, the King did not respond at first, "Why did you come to Vale?"

" _Why_ do you think I'm here today Jean?"

The King's tone remained perfectly level as he put his scroll aside and looked at his grandson directly, a little _too_ level and controlled for Jaune's liking, the sort of tone a person makes when they are trying to say that 'you fucked up somehow but we are going to do our best to be nice to you about it', and so a dozen things immediately ran through the little prince's head, trying to figure out what he had done wrong recently.

"I…I don't know your majesty." One of Jaune's fist was clenching and unclenching slowly. he was getting quite nervous now; any form of joviality in the King seemed to have evaporated, leaving behind a rather stony and cold man who although elderly, was _still_ the King of Vale.

"Take a guess." The complete deadpan expression in which the King said it with the thinnest of smiles on his face sent a chill up Jaune's spine, still he did his best to maintain his composure and cleared his throat before speaking.

"D-did you…erm…p-perhaps come here to-"

"I do wish you wouldn't stutter like that, I'm an old man and a little hard of hearing in my left ear."

"Sorry your majesty, I meant…ahem…" Jaune cleared his throat and forcibly composed himself, "I meant did you-"

"And do speak just a little louder if you would." As if to tease Jaune, he turned his left ear to the prince and tapped it gently.

"I meant did you perhaps come here to intervene on behalf of my friends who are currently being confined somewhere because one of them decided to blow her top during the hearing that would decide on the consequences for their actions and maybe possible probably hopefully get them out of trouble?" Jaune let out in a single quick, sharp breath.

"I'm not here for your friends Jean." The King turned to face Jaune with an unreadable expression on his face.

And immediately, Jaune started wondering what punishment he might potentially receive if he chose to run out of the door right. That. _Instant_.

"Rather," The King got out of his seat and began slowly walking the side of Jaune's chair, "Edward had informed me that a certain…shall we say little princeling of ours…had just suggested something incredibly extraordinary…" He stuffed his hands into his pockets while stopping right beside Jaune, bending over just a little so that his icy gaze was directed at the now very tense Jaune.

He started walking around Jaune slowly while the latter sat stock still, the former kicking his shoes against the floor to create a sharp tapping noise and drumming his fingers on the top of the chair, "This princeling of ours suggested that we should uhm…use our position to affect some sort of possible influence on the hearing that a bunch of his friends were attending because they…got a little bit uppity." He walked one round and came to a stop in front of Jaune.

"So actually Jean," He remarked, "I'm here for you."

 _Oh crap, well this is gonna suck._ Jaune visibly went tense.

"For me your majesty?" Inwardly, Jaune wondered if playing dumb was a good idea.

"Yes you of course." He turned and sat back down, placing one leg over the other and slouching in his seat with his arms on the armrests while Jaune remained sitting up straight.

A moment of silence passed between them before the King spoke again, "Do you know who your _paternal_ Aunt and Uncle are?"

Although caught off guard by the sudden question, Jaune had to admit he did not, he knew their names for sure, Frederick and Altira, but they had both passed on before he had been born and there were not many around for him to raise the issue with, and so they remained just a distant thought in his mind and nothing more than that.

"I know their names, Frederick and Altira." He stated as firmly as he could, the King nodded in response.

"At least you know that much, do you know what happened to them?"

"Not really, only that they died before I was born."

"Hmm, well I'll just spare you the details and give you a brief summary then," The King stood up again and began walking in an almost aimless manner behind Jaune, "Frederick was killed holding the frontline, it was not too long following his untimely death that your father left for Beacon Academy."

Jaune remained silent.

The King took this as a gesture to continue, "After graduating from Beacon, both your parents lived their lives out as hunter and pilot, until Altira fell in battle whilst out on an expedition far beyond our frontlines to eliminate an infestation of Grimm."

"I don't understand your Majesty." That was all Jaune could come up with after hearing this, he felt sad for sure hearing of the deaths of his family members, on the other hand he had hardly known them at all such that they might as well have been strangers.

"You're certainly following in the footsteps of your father aren't you?" There was a strange tone of mirth in the King's voice as he came to Jaune's left side.

Jaune gripped the armrests of his chair tightly, "I came to Beacon to hide from the White Fang per my uncle's-I mean per the Crown Prince's suggestion. It wasn't my idea to go to Beacon."

"No it wasn't." The King conceded the point, "On the other hand it was the one you chose out of all the others, and very quickly too with little hesitation on your part according to the Crown Prince, its almost enough to make one wonder." The King turned his back to Jaune and began walking away, "A male Arc, not the eldest child of the family, loses a sibling and then proceeds to run away to Beacon, also-"

"I didn't run away." Jaune could not keep the indignation out of his voice and barely avoided baring his teeth at the King who remained impassive at his outburst, "I know what I have to do when I'm done and I won't make the same mistake that my parents did."

The King remained silent for a moment before speaking, "I suppose I could say that we made a mistake as well that much I will admit," The King looked down to the floor momentarily, whether in solemnness or in disgust Jaune could not tell, and then he turned away and began walking around the room again, "We let your father and your mother run around on their own for _far too long_ , and when it came time for them to return to fulfill their duties, well they had you and your sisters, and then they rebelled and left all of us."

"I'm not my father." Jaune repeated, though it held less strength than the first time, "I _will_ fulfill my duties when my time comes."

"I know that," The King agreed with nary a hint of praise or commendation for it, "and let's hope you stay that way. However, I would like to call attention to certain actions on your part."

 _What else is there? Is this some sort of interrogation? Where is he going with this? What is he doing?_ Questions raced through Jaune's mind, swiftly cutoff by the King's voice again.

"Now Jacques was well known for being the best person you could ever have as a friend, the fact that he used royal funds to help them out on multiple occasions including payment of debt, financial assistance for housing, weapons crafting and maintenance, and my personal favorite, using it to bail someone out of prison."

Jaune was silent again.

He moved to stand on Jaune's right now and straightened his blazer out, turning his head to the side and looking down at his –nominally- much taller grandson, "Now I know that you've been… _helping yourself_ out on the side, _giving a hand_ to others so to speak," He smirked and narrowed his eyes as Jaune swallowed a lump in his throat, "We don't give you a high enough monthly allowance for you to do things like…shall we say," He clicked his tongue, " _Fund_ a food stall for your friends."

"It was…it was just meant to be a small, one -time thing," Jaune breathed slowly, "I justified it and my sis- I mean Maria allowed it." Jaune said as best as he could, despite the tea, his throat, mouth and lips were starting to feel rather dry and parched, and he could not stop himself from letting his tongue run over his lips.

" _Yes indeed_ ," The King nodded and began to walk back to his seat slowly, but instead of sitting down he rounded it so that he stood behind it and faced Jaune straight on, "Maria tends to bend over backwards when it comes to her younger siblings despite her best efforts on her own part doesn't she?" He tapped his fingers on the top of the chair as he said so.

At this point, it was becoming rather difficult for Jaune to face his grandfather- no, that was not right, it would be more appropriate to say that it was becoming difficult for Jaune to face the King of Vale, as much as he tried to keep his face straight and on his majesty, he could not stop his eyes from drifting to the ground rather bashfully and fidgeting rather uncomfortably with his fingers and toes.

"Do chin up a little more Jaune," The King leaned forward over the chair, "It's unbecoming of a prince to act…quite…so… _ashamed_." Jaune forced himself to look up, swallow a lump in his throat and into his King's eyes as a bead of sweat tickled his face as it rolled down from his forehead.

The King smiled, "Much better, _now_ …" He walked back up to Jaune and looked up at the much taller boy, "I'm not suggesting or saying that a person can't have their own fun from time to time, and in fact I even admire a person who isn't uptight all the time and is able to relax of their own accord." He explained with a smile before his expression shifter again as he leaned in close Jaune.

"But for goodness' sake Jean," The King lowered his head to look at Jaune from beneath his brow, "Please do not _ever_ mistake our… _deliberate_ off-handedness…" His head tilted ever so slightly before he corrected, " _For freedom to act as you please._ " He forcibly emphasized his phrase, "Have I made myself clear on that point?"

"…Yes sir." That was all that Jaune could come up with at that point, there was no argument to be made, not against his grandfather, and especially _not_ when his grandfather was the King of Vale.

"Good." Came the curt reply, and right at that moment a series of sharp knocks sounded on the door and it opened to reveal Dahlia.

"Your Majesty, General Ironwood and Headmaster Ozpin are here to see you." She stated flatly.

Jaune's eyes went wide as he stared right at the door.

"Ah good, my guests have arrived!" The King's demeanor changed in an instant as he clapped his hands together just once, "Do send them in if you would do so kindly Ms. Greener?" He smiled brightly.

"Of course your majesty." She nodded as she widened the door and stood to one side with a bow and one hand outstretched, allowing both men to enter the room and closing the door behind them. Although the headmaster of Beacon Academy was still dressed in his usual attire

"Your majesty." Ozpin gave a short bow in greeting, the General saluted instead.

"At ease you two," The King nodded before turning back to Jaune, "Jean." He said, making the prince's head snap back to face him with a surprised look on his face, "You may go now." He said and jerked his head in the direction of the door.

"Ah…o-of course your majesty." Jaune gave a quick bow and made for the door as fast as he could without breaking out into a run, he spared a passing glance at the two headmasters as he neared, "Headmaster, General." He acknowledged the both of them with a small nod as he went by; both met his gaze and answered with nods of their own, although Ozpin's eyebrows lifted momentarily at the prince's hurried action.

"Oh one last thing Jean!" The King called out, stopping the prince dead in his tracks and making him turn around with an awkward smile on his face.

"Yes sir?" He answered.

"Dahlia, Daniel!" He called out, and the twins opened the door simultaneously.

"Your Majesty?" They answered at the same time.

"I believe your shift is almost over is it not?"

"It is sir." Daniel answered monotonously.

"Then please, won't you as your last duty for the moment escort the prince about as he goes until such time as he chooses the leave?"

"Of course your majesty." Dahlia nodded.

"Thank you, you're both very kind." The King nodded as the prince exited the room with the two protectors, leaving him with the General and the Headmaster.

"Great!" The King clapped his hands together once and rubbed them together eagerly as he looked upon his two guests, "Now that that's been taken care off," He cleared his throat abruptly, "It's good to see you two gentlemen, please have a seat!" He gestured to the chairs in the room while he went back to the kettle to collect a new tray of teacups.

Ozpin and Ironwood exchanged a curious glance with Ironwood clearly looking a little unsettled; Ozpin merely shrugged and took one seat while Ironwood took the other. Within a moment, the King had already returned with a tray of three cups for the three of them, he set it down easily on the table and dropped into his chair easily.

"It's an honor to be served by the King himself." Ozpin did his best to crack a joke.

"Sorry about that," The King laughed, "I'd have brought servants to wait on you hand and foot, but unfortunately…" He pursed his lips and twirled his moustache.

"I don't have many." He finished with a scoff, "So then, what can I do for you gentlemen today?"

Ozpin decided to start, "Excuse my impertinence your majesty, but his highness seemed rather… _distressed_ shall we say…as I saw him leaving." Ozpin said as cautiously as he could.

"Was he?" The King lied right through his teeth, "I didn't notice a thing."

"Well he seemed to be in quite a rush."

"Hmm, are you suggesting something Ozpin?" The King's raised his brow as if daring the headmaster to push the issue further.

"Far be it from me to suggest anything your majesty," Ozpin quickly said in return, "I was just being curious as to what happened, I will not push further if you deem it unruly of me to do so."

"Bah!" The King suddenly scoffed and laughed, startling both men, "I was merely giving the little prince a bit of a scare and a… _familial_ reminder that's all." He stated simply as he took a sip of his tea.

* * *

 _ **Two days before RWBY's incarceration,**_

 _ **The Royal Palace in Avalon,**_

An elderly man sat alone on a balcony overlooking a large courtyard, watching a group of children freely play around in it with a small smile on his face as he sipped from a cup of hot tea, he sighed and relaxed into his chair, closing his eyes to immerse himself in the cool wind blowing out over the area and letting the gentle sounds of ambience wash over hi-

The scroll in front of him started ringing loudly.

With a snort of annoyance, he sat back up and pressed the green button on the scroll.

"Yes?" He said, grunting to make sure the other person knew he was rather irritated by the sudden disturbance.

"Your Majesty?" The Crown Prince's voice came over the scroll.

"Ah Edward, is there something I can help you with?" The King leaned back into his seat and turned up the volume to listen to his eldest child.

"No, rather I just came to inform you about a certain _wayward_ prince of ours." The Crown Prince growled out with an indignant tone and his eyes rolling.

The King quirked an eyebrow and sat up a little straighter, "Oh? What's he gotten up to now? Killed anyone in particular?" He asked, clearly bemused at the thought of the only son of the Duke and Duchess rebelling against _their_ family. He took the cup of tea to his lips again and took another gentle sip.

"No instead, he suggested that we should do _something_ about that rather unfortunate incident wherein a Team of trainees wrecked a public highway and…maybe ended up causing…more than a few civilian deaths."

"Oh that _is_ a rather sad thing, would you help me compose and send a text over scroll expressing our deepest condolences and sympathies for the families of those victims killed in the incident?" The King asked blithely as he set the cup down.

"Fine then, and what shall we do about Jean?" Edward asked.

"What do you mean?"

"He was asking if we should perhaps intercede on behalf of his friends and his three _unofficial_ protectors… _all of whom_ were directly involved in the incident." Edward sighed with exasperation.

"Well that is a rather nonsensical and preposterous thing to suggest," The King agreed with a smirk, "Have we vetted them yet? I don't recall anything related to them." He pursed his lips.

"Well the _official_ protector we deployed down to Vale gave them the go ahead, so we trusted in his judgement and Jean's judgement and let it stay as that."

"I see, so what are you suggesting now?"

"I beg your pardon? I wasn't suggesting anything-"

"No, but it's clear to me that the boy has without a doubt vexed you in some way, after all you wouldn't be coming to me about him if you didn't feel strongly about his actions in some way now would you?" The King nodded knowingly.

"…Yes that's true," On the other side of the screen, Edward nodded and folded his arms with a sigh, "I'm beginning to wonder if he's not becoming more like his father the more time he spends in that Academy."

"From just one overstep? Aren't you being a little obtuse with that assertion? He's after all just a child for all intents and purposes." The King chided gently, Edward could be –and probably _was-_ one of the staunchest traditionalists in the entirety of Remnant, everything and everyone had a time and place to be for him.

Even the King found this rather annoying at times; still he did his best to humor his only son.

"Maybe I am, on the other hand I'd rather not take any risks with him, we let both Jacques and Viola run around far too freely for far too long, eventually forgetting their responsibilities and landing Maria in the situation she is in now, let's not take that chance now hm?"

"So you're thinking we should teach him a lesson and ensure that he never oversteps his boundaries again is that it?"

"Well I wouldn't…" Edward cleared his throat, "I wouldn't say that we should go so far as to _teach him a lesson_ as you say, but perhaps… _a small reminder_ that he should take care of where he treads and what he uses the little authority that he has in his name for, it could after all be most damaging if something like a prince standing up for a group of rogue trainee hunters came about."

"Disavow his actions?"

"Maybe a little more than that…"

"Well then why don't I pop over there for a while?" The man laughed, "Give all of them a good shocker for a moment."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me, I'll just drop in to say hello and maybe give a speech or two, it would be a nice surprise for everyone I think." He stroked his chin with a smile on his face, "And at the same time meet up with my grandson who I haven't seen in a while."

"Are you sure about that?" Edward shifted uncomfortably, "We haven't prepared any sort of schedule or transport or alerted the Vale council."

"Why should we? Let's make this a surprise visit!" So saying the man stood up and stretched his back, sighing in relief as he leaned one way and then the other, slowly working out the kinks in his back, "Not only will I have an opportunity to check up on how our youngest prince is doing, but also to see what all this is about," He let his arms settle down to his sides, "How on earth did a little accident draw so much Grimm that they would cutoff communications for a time? Well at least it took the heat of our own lines…"

"It wasn't just a little accident your majesty." Edward pointed out.

"Well then…" There was a strange twinkly in the old man's eyes as he stroked his chin, "I _am_ the King of Vale after all, should the day come that my subjects be forced to live in fear of the approaching darkness, it is our requisite duty to…" He cleared his throat as he finished the last of his tea, "provide reassurance, comfort and shelter to them."

"They're not your subjects anymore."

The look on the king's face darkened, "No, they are no longer _our_ subjects," He set the tea cup down and moved over to the railing, placing his hands on it and leaning forward, "And they haven't been for more than half-a-century."

"What comes of this then?" Edward raised an eyebrow, "Putting in effort to help out a bunch of ingrates such as them."

The King sucked in a lungful of air and breathed out slowly as he turned back to face the screen of the scroll, "The throne of Vale is not a mere symbol to be coddled and protected; the throne is a symbol that _protects_. In dire times, people will always look to symbols for hope and safety, the throne of Vale was often that symbol during dark times." He commented wistfully, "If the council cannot provide reassurance to the people, then I think _we_ shall step in for a change."

"Are you sure about this? I don't think they'll be appreciative of the king 'just dropping by' for a visit…" Edward trailed off uncertainly, looking at his father with an inquisitive eye, trying to figure out what on Remnant the King was thinking.

"Of course," The King nodded, "Besides the primary purpose of this visit isn't just to give a few nice speeches and wave at the crowd while we're at it, I'm also going to take the opportunity to check in with little Jean and see how he's doing." He chuckled warmly.

"Should I go with you? I'm rather concerned for your health at the moment your majesty."

"No, no don't worry about it, its fine!" The elderly man laughed heartily, "I think it's been a while since I've stretched my legs like that!" He smiled with a twinkling in his eye, "Just get the transport and the Protectors ready, everything else will be fine."

* * *

"I beg your pardon, but did his highness do something wrong?" Ozpin asked.

"He sought our intervention to aid his friends, which would have assuredly been a most blatant abuse of authority." The King shrugged when he said it.

"Oh, I see" Ozpin nodded as his eyes flicked away, "That must've been a _terribly_ offensive thing for him to do."

 _And a Terribly brave thing for Mr. Arc to do, I didn't think he'd actually try though._ Ozpin thought to himself quietly.

"Well of course we couldn't very well give it to him, although it did ruffle the feathers of my own son the Crown Prince though, and so to save dear Edward the trouble I decided to come down here to give him a piece of my mind myself." The King chuckled to himself, "Poor Jean, still too young and inexperienced to see an act, I just hope that he didn't take it too seriously, I honestly thought he was going to have a heart attack at one point."

Ozpin remained silent for a moment before speaking up, "Surely that wasn't entirely necessary, in all my time with him he has always seemed rather unlike his father."

 _Actually he's not all that different, he's close to his comrades and will bend over to help them on a moment's notice, it was one of Jacques most defining characteristics._ Ozpin thought.

"No he's not, Jean isn't a rebellious person by nature, he'll fall in line as long as it's pointed out to him. Certainly he isn't Anne, god forbid that woman inherit the worst of her parent's traits, at least she came home eventually, quite unlike Kristina who remains for lack of a better term… _gone_." The King rolled his eyes at the mention of his granddaughters.

While Ozpin had not met Kristina in person, it was hard for anyone to forget the Rebellious oldest daughter of Jacques, Princess Anne aka Annie Arc. After her battle with the Vale Police Division and a couple other hunters –all of whom were sent to the hospital in a concussion- sent in to reign in the rogue huntress, she had become the ultimate persona non grata in Vale, and had apparently disappeared off the scope, surfacing temporarily for brief periods around Remnant and then disappearing just as quickly. She apparently resurfaced one last time within the royal enclaves in the aftermath of the White Fang attack, doing her best to help her people out.

Ozpin snapped out of his thoughts when the King began speaking again, "You wouldn't happen to have anything to do with it would you?" He was asked, "With the prince, trying to get us to _help_ I mean."

"Of course not your majesty, I know better than to play around with authority, it always results in such a mess of things you know."

The King hummed, seemingly in agreement as he lay back and relaxed himself.

"Still, perhaps I might give a speech or two if I felt so inclined to do so, what exactly was that whole mess with the Highway and huntresses about anyway?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

With a sigh, Ozpin began his explanation, explaining the entire course of events so far and admitting that the official story if it being entirely an accident was false and that Team RWBY _had_ in fact tried their darn best to take on a criminal and terrorist organization with their own strength. Ironwood adding in the information about how his own prototype robot had been stolen and used in the incident, the King listened to all this with a ready ear and nodding to show his attention.

At the end of the explanation, he had this to say, "Well gentlemen, as far as I can tell from the information you have just disclosed to me, you are all _deeply_ in the shit and the problem lies with what appears to be an irresponsible group of students, am I wrong on this assessment?"

Neither Ozpin nor Ironwood said anything, only shaking their heads slowly.

"Ah the _central_ problem with youth," The King sighed and got out of his seat to take a short walk to the window and peer out of it, "Always too eager to get out and do something, thinking so hard about whether not they _could_ as opposed to whether or not they _should_."

"I was actually wondering if your majesty had any advice to give as to these matters." Ozpin asked.

The King clapped his hands together once and turned back to them, "Well the most sensible thing to do of course would be to hang the little fools out to dry and carry on," Seeing the shift in the headmaster's expression he quickly corrected himself, "But I wager that as headmaster of the Academy this is _not_ an option for you is it?"

"Although you are right to say that my post as headmaster makes me feel bound to a sense of duty to my own students, I feel like I should clarify that there are other factors at work here."

"Oh? Do enlighten us."

"Chiefly, for all their faults Team RWBY is a highly effective and efficient team of students, _more_ than capable ability, mind and soul. They demonstrated it as such during their fight with the Atlesian robot, they stand head and shoulders above their peers, and are matched only by his highness' own team although they tend to of course demonstrate a greater proclivity towards 'independent actions' as it were."

"Ah independent actors," The King snorted, "Such troublesome people and yet, the same people that we often rely on in times of crisis."

"I understand that your majesty, and so-"

"It shouldn't be too difficult, both of you and your followers are tied down so actions on your part will only reflect badly on yourselves, on the other hand a _third party_ with sufficient influence could…shall we say…" The King pursed his lips as his eyes flicked to the ceiling for a moment before refocusing on the two in front of him, "Gently _push_ the course in your favor."

"What are you suggesting your Majesty?"

"Nothing of course, just thinking about whether I should go down to the hospital to give the victims a show of support, maybe give a few speeches, that sort of little thing." He shrugged.

"You're going to help us?" Ironwood had been silent all this time, and chose this moment to speak up, Ozpin shot him a sharp look.

"Maybe, maybe not, I still have to think about what could be in this for _me_." He sighed and drummed his fingers idly on the table while looking distant.

Ozpin and Ironwood exchanged worried glances.

* * *

 _ **Elsewhere,**_

Jaune took a deep breath as he pressed the soda button on the vending machine and watched as a can rolled into the bottom. He fished it out, opened it and took a long drink, he had been completely caught off guard by the sheer pressure that the King could exude from himself onto the people around him just by his very presence, at the moment all the prince wanted to do was to calm himself and try to move on past the little talk he had just had with his maternal grandfather.

 _Your certainly following in the footsteps of your father aren't you?_ The words seemed to echo in his head, his father and mother, Jacques and Viola Arc, Duke and Duchess of Armorica. Disappeared years ago shortly after Elizabeth, Victoria and Catherine were born, and by that time both Anne and Kristina had found their own things to do while he stayed in Armorica with Jeanne and Maria.

And then after that…

Jaune shook his head a little as he took another long gulp, he badly needed to clear his head, needed to stop remembering…

Needed to stop…

 _And let's hope you stay that way._

"I know!" He cried out to no one in particular.

"Your highness?" Jaune jumped, he had completely forgotten his two silent companions were still behind him.

"Are you well your highness? If you need any help the King's personal doctor is here alongside him." Daniel asked with a level voice.

 _Oh god no, I DO not need this now, I don't need a bunch_ _of bodyguards worrying over me._ Jaune thought as he tried to come up with an answer.

"Your highness? Are you alri-" Dahlia tried but was swiftly cut off.

"I'm fine ok?!" Jaune growled out angrily, the sudden mood shift caught both protectors off guard and they flinched from his sudden outburst, Jaune immediately felt rather guilty and quickly put his hands up in front of him.

"Sorry…I didn't mean to…ahem," _Alright calm down, they're just doing their job here, no need to get angry at them,_ Jaune straightened up, "Sorry I shouldn't have snapped at you, I'm just a little winded, it's been a long day, I can find my own way out, you can go and take your break."

"Our orders were to escort you until such time as you live the premises." Dahlia flatly replied.

"Orders from His Majesty himself." Daniel spoke up as well.

 _Whelp, no overriding that then._ Jaune sweat-dropped.

He finished his drink and made his way outside the sun was already beginning to set ever so slowly, waving goodbye to his two temporary companions he departed with another taxi and sped off quickly.

"Well he seems rather nice in general." Daniel commented.

"Not too bad looking either I guess." Dahlia shrugged, "I mean not 10/10 but I'd say a 7/10 is pretty good."

"Yeah, well let's go catch five while we can." Daniel tapped his sister on the shoulder and the two disappeared back into the building.

* * *

 _ **Meanwhile, in Beacon Academy,**_

Team JNPR –without the J- entered their dorm room rather lazily and sat around the room without really knowing what to do, Pyrrha on the chair by the desk, Ren on his bed and Nora leaning on her bed's post, all of them were rather quiet, fidgeting here and there and making small movements that spoke more about their mood than any words really did. Uncertainty and nervousness was in the air, not just for their friends but for their errant team leader who had disappeared of to do something for their headmaster with only a vague assurance of making it up to them.

"Jaune-y's holding out on us." Nora stated out of nowhere.

"That much is obvious; he's been hiding something for a very long time now." Ren agreed.

"But what is he hiding?!" Pyrrha grit her teeth and clenched her fist, she really did not like the idea that her partner was keeping secrets from her- _the team._ They were supposed to be a _team_ , which meant no secrets being kept from each other and that they bonded as a team and that…

And that was where Pyrrha sort of hit a dilemma, as far as she knew no one else but her knew that Jaune had had dreams… _bad_ _dreams,_ she was the only person besides Ozpin who knew that he had such dreams _._ Ones that made you go completely off-the-rails and forced you to try to kill your opponent in the most efficient way possible, she supposed that without the stress of combat, his 'semblance' did not activate and with that, he seemed to be perfectly fine otherwise.

In fact he had not talked about it since that first time on the rooftop of the dormitory. Indeed during combat classes these days he seemed to far calmer and controlled, and generally did not look to tackle anyone to the ground and slam the pointy end of his backup knife into their faces before Professor Goodwitch called him off. Instead, he was more content to ram his sword's handguard into their faces using that silly technique of grabbing his sword by the blade and using it like a hammer.

Well she _still_ thought it was silly, no matter what he said otherwise.

In any case, perhaps now would have been a good time to start revealing the things she knew about Jaune in turn, after all if their leader was going to be so secretive perhaps it was time to start opening the can lid that was covering him so tightly.

"Alright so now Team JNPR's investigation into team leader Jaune Arc is beginning…" Nora took a deep breath, "NOW!" She shouted and immediately crossed her legs, folded her arms and adopted a thinking posture, "So what do we know about our team leader?"

"We know he comes from the royal enclaves…" Ren started.

"Does spend quite a lot of time in private with our headmaster." Pyrrha noted.

"Has a rather big family, like six sisters!" Nora was nodding along.

"He doesn't think all that highly of his parents." Ren put forward.

"What do we know about his sisters anyway?" Pyrrha raised an eyebrow.

"Didn't he say one of them runs a law firm…?" And then Nora's eyes widened, "That's it!" She cried out, both looked at her with perplexed expressions on their faces, "If his sister is a working professional, than we should have no problem finding out from there! It should be even easier since it's a private law firm, all we have to do is search on the Rem-net!" Both Pyrrha and Ren exchanged an understanding look before they fetched their scrolls.

Unfortunately that turned out to be a dead end, none of them could find out anything from the search term: _Arc lawyer._

"I don't get it, what can of company doesn't have its own website in this day and age?" Nora tossed her scroll to one side.

"Maybe it can't afford one?" Ren tried.

Pyrrha sighed, "This is starting to feel like a really bad idea guys, I don't think Jaune would appreciate us gossiping and snooping behind his back."

They lapsed into a rather gloomy silence at that. Jaune was a nice person and leader for sure, it was just that for his own team, he could certainly stand to be a little more informative at times.

"That's it!" Nora suddenly slammed her fist into her palm, "How were we so blind before?! The answer is so obvious!" Her eyes were bright and shining with determination, both Ren and Pyrrha exchanged slightly worried looks, both wondering where the hammer maiden was taking this.

"Jaune is obviously some sort of secret super-spy person working for Ozpin! Performing secret missions to sniff out criminals and terrorists and beating up their hordes of goons and henchmen while saving the world and never letting anyone but himself and Ozpin knows about it!"

Ren and Pyrrha blinked and exchanged a look, Ren shrugged and Pyrrha nodded.

Well it was just like Nora anyway.

"But it makes the most sense doesn't it? I mean he's always so secretive, doesn't really talk much and he always spends time with..." And then a lightbulb seemed to go off above Nora's head and she snapped her fingers.

"I know! He must be working with Ruby, Blake and that one monkey guy! They were all involved in that thing at the docks a couple months ago, Jaune must have been working undercover against the White Fang when he saw that Blake and the monkey needed help so he blew his cover and then Ozpin probably made all of them into secret agents!" Although it _was_ Nora they were talking about, Pyrrha _not_ to think of those possibilities since it generally meant that Jaune was going to be closer with whichever girl he was being partnered with than her.

And that just would not do.

It was a shame they just did not have the chance to train together as often as she would have liked, Vulcan's rage was one thing, but her chance to bond with him as a partner –and she hoped in the future, as _more_ than a partner- was the primary thing as stake here.

She personally would have loved nothing more than to be able to pull him to one side and demand an explanation, unfortunately for her Jaune generally did not like being pushed into things.

So she was just going to have to bide her time and court him slowly, well she had four years to do it anyway.

* * *

 _ **Vale City Airport,**_

As the day drew to a close and some of the initial excitement started winding down, a new airship with a snowflake emblem on it appeared in the skies above Vale City Airport. With clearance granted for it to land, it touched down gently and taxied away to a hangar where it would stay for as long as it needed to until whatever business its master had was completed.

The ramp lowered and a woman stepped out of it, white-hair tied in a stiff bun, she was very well dressed in her Atlesian Military specialist uniform, ironed and starched to perfection such that there was not a single crease to be found. She carried herself well, with pride and strength and perhaps just a little bit of haughtiness in her step. As she exited the airship she turned to look at the one right beside her own.

"So that's the airship of his majesty…" She mused quietly to herself, it was an older model and it certainly was not as big or impressive as her own airship was, and yet there was a certain old-fashioned charm to it that she just could not place, was it nostalgia for the past perhaps? The lingering remains of the once proud House who ruled this domain of Remnant, the airship was certainly plainer looking even if it bore the markings of the House of Vale.

She knew all about the House of Vale of course, how could she not? She had had the pleasure of spending the last several months working together with one of its own progeny, a genius young girl aiding in the development of advanced technology related to all sorts of fields including robotics, medical equipment and dust refining…

That girl never ceased to amaze her.

And according to her, she had a twin brother currently staying –or hiding out as it would appear- at the prestigious Beacon Academy, the only son born to the Duke and Duchess of Armorica amongst a large family of eight children, one of only two princes in the entirety of the Royal Enclaves, a tragic result of the White Fang attack that had breached the city and claimed the life of not just one of the youngest sisters, but also disabled the Crown Prince's wife and caused a miscarriage.

She seethed at the thought, an unprovoked attack on a city that accepted the Faunus as equal? It had been clear that day that the White Fang were just a bunch of terrorists with no real cause to fight for, a bunch of pathetic and useless…

She rubbed her forehead, clearing those thoughts out of her head. In any case, she hoped he would turn out better than the _eldest_ daughter of the family, she still tried her best not to remember her and tried not to think of her as a princess. The eldest daughter had basically been the antithesis of what a princess ought to have been.

"Ms. Schnee!" A voice broke her out of her thoughts, it was her aide that had spoken up, she turned around to look at him with a quizzical expression on her face.

"We're all set, we can go whenever you wish ma'am."

"Excellent." Winter Schnee nodded in return.

Shaking away her distracting thoughts of the House of Vale, she turned her attention back to the _original_ purpose of her coming to Vale. Which was to put it simply: fish her little sister out of whatever problem she had gotten herself into now, and of course ensure that she received a proper scolding for it as befitting the elder sister of Weiss Schnee.

At the same time as Winter Schnee was making her own preparations, down in the baggage collection area, a different sort of preparation was taking place.

There was a tall man, broad shoulders, blonde hair, blue eyes and little stubble on his chin, standing on one leg quietly with his armed folded, he was waiting in earnest for the last piece of his luggage to arrive, a little something that he wanted to give to his two daughters just to… _offload_ him from his house and give him some peace and quiet for once.

So to speak.

He was finally answered with a sharp bark and he let his arms fall to his side as the pet carrier came into view with 01 Corgi inside of it.

"Finally!" He sighed in relief as he picked it up with the dog inside barking excitedly.

"Calm down Zwei, yes we're going to see Ruby and Yang, yes you're going to stay with them and yes there will be food." Taiyang Xiao Long growled out, that seemed to silence the mutt, but he continued to excitedly move around in the carrier, making it rather difficult for the man who was carrying it.

Taiyang sighed as he bunched up his shoulders and stepped out of the Airport, normally whenever his daughters were in trouble he could rely on his old teammate to take care of them for him since he had his own responsibilities as a teacher in Signal, at the moment though _that guy_ was off doing something in Mistral, flirting with barmaids and waitresses probably.

And so it fell to him to drop whatever he had been doing and organise a trip to Vale from his island home of Patch, the communications blackout had been sudden due to the rarity of such an event, but as soon as he had caught wind of what was happening he had mustered everything and gone on his way with a letter to Signal explaining himself.

"Just wait for me you two, I'm coming." He looked into the night sky before setting off.

* * *

 **No of course I most certainly did not forget that Winter and Taiyang were a thing, with this fic going more and more AU with every chapter I felt, why not use this as an excuse to introduce them earlier and set up V3? Both have their own distant connections to Jaune which Ialready sort-of hinted at in previous chapters (STRQ and CORA were rivals, Jaune's twin works in Atlas)**

 **I know everyone expected me to just deus ex machina the whole thing away with the King, unfortunately it really wasn't what I had in mind in the first place, the key thought for me was that the King should act as the process rather than the end result, gently easing events in the preferred direction as opposed to directly trying to push them that way.**

 **I was going to include a longer conversation between the two headmasters and the King, but I felt that the chapter was long enough already and so left it out, it got really long winded and would have made this chapter about equal in length to the previous.**

 **There was a part of me that wanted to make both Dahlia and Daniel childhood friends of Jaune, they would have met in school together, with Dahlia and Daniel dreaming of becoming knights -their father being a royal legionnaire and being determined to do so (although they would not have known that Jaune was a prince until much later), in this chapter the King would have been aware of this and would have let the both of them go so that they could basically catch up with each other. The purpose would have been to give Jaune someone else to interact with outside of the his servants, family and Beacon, unfortunately there was no built-up and no mention of them before, so I cut it out, also I already had Gravelyn so there was no need to create even more redundant OCs.**

 **I realized at some point that I completely forgot about the whole dreaming subplot that Pyrrha is the only one who is apparently aware that Jaune had at one point been having nightmares that may or may not have been related to his semblance, I don't really know if this is a could time to restart that subplot but I really wanted to run it to its eventual conclusion because its partly related to the overall story plot.**

 **Well that's all for now, I might have one more chapter at the end of August, but we'll see about that.**

 **No omake again, this time however because I wanted to keep the one I had in mind until the next chapter.**

 **I appreciate all your reviews, faves and follows!**


	27. Imperfect Solution

**IMPORTANT A/N PLS READ: To those of you who got an update but didn't know what the heck it was, that was because I deleted the V3C12 thoughts chapter and it just updated on its own without me realizing it.**

 **Sorry**

 **Now on to business.**

 **Holy shit**

 **Nearly twenty thousand words**

 **The reason is because I really just wanted to finish up this minor storyline, I really think it has dragged on for long enough, too long in fact, so I ended up cramming two chapters worth of content into one chapter. Another reason being that I was completely sapped of inspiration for writing the second hearing after spending almost all of it on the previous chapter.**

 **The main problem being figuring out a way so that Team RWBY could sort of get out of being stripped of the right to attend Beacon Academy, and how Taiyang and Winter were basically going to affect that in a REASONABLE manner.**

 **In the end I couldn't quite do it, I'm sorry but I couldn't, I don't have the ability to do so and the fic suffers for it and I have no excuses for it.**

 **Instead, I had to go quite over the top, and in the process you may lose quite a bit of respect for some of the characters as they are portrayed and you may hate me in the process. You'll know it when you realize that I spent the last three chapters telling you that RWBY was wrong just so I can tell you the opposite.**

 **That's fine, I admit I cocked up MORE than a little bit on this chapter, perhaps it would have been better to split it apart? I dunno.**

 **Do enjoy.**

* * *

As the news continued rolling their feed of the most recent events to have affected Vale in the short span of days that had just past, in Beacon Academy, a trio of not-quite-Haven-students watched the news intently.

"Now this _is_ quite the surprise…" Cinder clicked her tongue; she did not seem the least bit irritated, by the current course of events, instead she seemed rather interested, "I'm curious to see where this goes…"

"So some old fart shows up and everyone's in an uproar," Mercury rolled his eyes, "I don't get what's the big deal here."

"Man just imagine what he must have in his pockets that I could pick…" Emerald looked a little dreamy.

Cinder laughed, "You'd have a hard time finding anything in there, the House of Vale is not what it once was or may have been, the little prince appears to primarily be a rather ineffectual person who I doubt would bend a rule like his friends."

"Should we do anything about this?" Mercury asked.

"We _won't_ do anything about this; the last thing we need is any more attention on us than is absolutely necessary, the fact that Roman was discovered out was mitigated by the fact that the Team that did so is going to be punished for doing what they thought was right," Cinder let out a scoff at that, "A fittingly ironic end for them, but…" She said as she reached for her scroll, "We need to make sure that fool of a _bull_ does not go mad and take out his rage where we don't need it, we don't need to be chased by anything else now."

* * *

It was starting to get dark when Jaune finally stumbled out of the bullhead and back onto Beacon Academy grounds, his mind thoroughly exhausted and drained from the day's events, from watching his friends completely mess up their hearing, to meeting with his grandfather and getting a severe tongue-lashing from him for…well…just about everything that had happened so far.

He staggered through long corridors and hallways trying to figure out where he ought to go, unfortunately as much as he wanted to just go back to his dorm and sleep until the next decade, he also did not feel like having to confront his teammates and their demands for an explanation. He felt guilty enough that he had to purposefully keep it a secret from them, and that guilt was only going to be compounded if he repeatedly tried to brush aside their questions with "I'm fine, _really_ ".

 _Dammit, why now? What on Remnant am I doing wrong here?_ He grit his teeth as he took a moment to lean against a wall and rub his forehead, he could feel a headache coming on.

 _I hope I'm not falling sick or anything._ He grumbled quietly to himself before moving off, he found himself wandering about the Academy, aimless, thoughts about his family swirling through his mind.

To his complete surprise, he found himself coming upon the door that opened up to the rooftop of the dorms, he had absolutely no idea how he had gotten there in his jumbled up state of mind, on the other hand perhaps he just needed some fresh air to clear his head and to organize his thoughts, perhaps his body's own needs had just pulled him forward unconsciously.

He pushed the door open, breathing a sigh of relief, closing his eyes and relaxing as he allowed a cool, gentle wind to sweep over him.

 _Ah, why can't the world just be as peaceful as-_

"Jaune?" The voice of a certain champion broke him out of his thoughts, his eyes snapped open, and he found Pyrrha Nikos looking right into his eyes, she was standing just a short distance away from him, her hands on the railing with a curious look on her face.

Jaune straightened up, _Well this scene sure feels familiar…_ He smirked to himself as he walked up to her and stood beside her with his own hands on the railing looking wistfully out into the distance.

"Nice night huh?" He started.

Pyrrha hummed a non-response but did not say anything, the two simply stood there quietly.

"Jaune…?" Pyrrha began slowly as she turned to face him.

"Yeah?" He answered, looking at her out of the corner of his eye.

"Remember when we were up here so many months ago?"

"It feels like a lifetime since then doesn't it?" Jaune propped his head up on his palm with his elbow on the railing.

"Back then I said-"

"You said 'we're partners, so you can tell me anything' right?" Jaune nodded, in his mind he could already tell where the conversation was going to go and steeled himself accordingly.

"So what's going on Jaune?" Pyrrha frowned, "It always seems like you're apart from the rest of us, what's happening?" She asked.

 _What aren't you telling us?_ She kept that part in her head, afraid it might be overly pushy.

 _Well this was going to come up as some point,_ Jaune sighed and looked down at his feet, _God and I was just hoping for some rest…_

"Pyrrha," Jaune turned to her, leaning on the railing, "You don't have to answer this if you feel uncomfortable or anything but…have you…ever had any… _problems_ with your family?" He asked hesitatingly, Pyrrha's eyes went wide and she started to play with her fingers nervously.

"Erm…well…" She looked left and right and sucked in her lips as she tried to respond, "When I was young, my parents got a divorce." She gave an awkward look before leaning over the railing with both her elbows, "I…didn't really understand it at the time, I guess mother and father just… _disagreed_ somehow, it was shortly before I started competing in the Mistral tournament, I've stayed with my mother since."

Jaune's eyebrows raised in surprise at that, "Wow…that's…it must've been…difficult for you I guess."

Pyrrha shook her head, "Actually I don't really remember much of it anymore, and it was years ago so…I guess we all just move on with time…?"

"Do you have any siblings?" Pyrrha surprisingly laughed at that question.

"Nope, I'm an only child." She nodded with a smile.

Now it was Jaune's turn to frown, "Shouldn't your mother need help? I mean…if something were to happen…not that I'm saying _anything_ will happen but-"

"It's ok," Pyrrha waved it off, "I have a…I suppose 'friend' is a bit much… _acquaintance_ in Mistral, he helps my mother out when she needs it." Pyrrha sighed and cast her look downward as the two fell silent.

"Did something happen at home Jaune?" She finally asked in a sombre tone of voice, searching his eyes for a response.

Jaune pushed out his lower lip in response.

"Well at least you had parents…" When he saw her questioning look he sighed and slowly lowered himself to sit down on the rooftop, Pyrrha sitting beside him, "I didn't really know mine very well, I was…what…I must've been like…" Jaune twisted his lip, "Nine when they left? I don't even really remember that well anymore…"

"Oh…I'm sor-"

"Remember when I said my elder sister ran a law firm?"

"Yeah?"

"That's the family business on my mother's side, after my parents left, it fell onto my uncle on my mother's side, he was going to teach my oldest sister," Jaune chuckled darkly, "and then _she_ left for Beacon, and after she graduated she disappeared and didn't come back until two years ago, _after_ we were attacked."

Pyrrha nodded in understanding.

"And after _that,_ my second eldest went to Mistral, the last time I saw her was at the…" A pain rose in Jaune's chest at that, but he pushed it back down with a shake of his head, "At the funeral for my sister, I haven't seen her since." He did his best to remain impassive, "So my uncle was left with the third sister, and she took the reins of the family business and took care of the five of us in the meanwhile, me with my twin and three triplets." Jaune wrapped his arms around his knees and stared up into the sky.

Pyrrha said nothing.

"You're probably wondering what I'm rambling on about at this point don't you?" Jaune smiled weakly at her.

"No you're not," Pyrrha immediately objected, "I…think this is the most you've ever talked about yourself."

"Huh, so back to the main point my uncle and Ozpin are…acquaintances of a sort, so sometimes I do errands for Ozpin, retrieve things for him, find out things for him, meet some people for him, just simple stuff, no big deal." Jaune reassured her, "My uncle's way of repaying him in thanks for letting me go to Beacon."

"Wait I thought you passed the test like everyone else?"

"I did, but my place was guaranteed regardless of me passing, I still did it though, just to prove to myself at least that I could be hunter and stand alongside everyone else."

Pyrrha did not look especially convinced by his words, but seemed to at least accept his explanation, "I see," She said with a nod.

A long silence passed between them as the two sat there quietly, taking in the sights and sounds all around them in the small bit of peace that they had for the time being before they were tossed back into the whirlpool that was life on Remnant.

"You know I always wonder…" Jaune began again slowly, "If perhaps my parents didn't love us or something, maybe we were a mistake, and maybe that's why they both disappeared so soon…"

"Don't say that Jaune," Pyrrha quickly chided, "I'm sure they loved you it's just that…"

"How do you know that?" His voice rang sharp with anger, "They abandoned us, left us to our own and disappeared, and now the rest of my family thinks that I might be going the same way." He growled out and put his head in his hands, "It's just…" He swallowed a lump in his throat.

"Where were they when we needed them most?" He asked weakly, with a sound that was almost pathetic in tone and voice, both lamenting and cursing the lost in the same sentence.

Silence once again fell upon them, Pyrrha being completely unaware of how to handle the situation with her lov- _leader and partner_ tactfully, she had had as best a childhood as could be asked for given her celebrity status and having only one parent –her mother- for most of the time, it seemed like family was a really touchy issue for her normally otherwise mild-mannered –if a little smartass-ed- team leader.

So she did the only thing she could really think off, and before she could even think twice about it…

She wrapped her arms around him tightly, leaning her head on his shoulder.

He went completely stiff and tense at the contact without saying a single word, the surprise move making him reflexively try to pull away from her, unfortunately for him she held fast and hugged him pretty tightly with no apparent intention of letting go. It would take a moment of time, but Jaune eventually calmed down and stopped struggling, the two continued breathing quietly as he let one arm gingerly snake around her side to hold her in turn, it felt incredibly awkward for him for some reason, he and –well at least he had figured- Pyrrha did not really have the overly touchy-feely affectionate sort of relationship anyway.

That would be _too_ awkward, even for him.

"I'm sorry." Pyrrha said quietly.

"What for? It's…none of it is your fault." He responded quietly, he was breathing heavily.

"You…well…you sound like you've had a hard life." Both remained in their positions, with Jaune staring into the sky with Pyrrha's face buried in his shoulder.

"…I try not to think about it too much." There was a short pause before he spoke, Jaune adjusted his position so that they were both in less stiff and uncomfortable positions, "Sorry…I'm ah…I'm not really used to this sort of thing."

"It's ok, neither am I." Pyrrha laughed.

They stayed like that for a while, until Jaune started to feel his eyelids begin to weigh down on top of his eyes, he let out a loud yawn.

"I think it's time we head back, we should probably-" He was cut off when his scroll rang loudly, it was the ringtone he used for a message rather than a call though, Pyrrha released her grip on him as he fished it out of his pocket to check on it.

It was a message from Ozpin.

 _Now that's rather strange, what on Remnant could he…?_ Jaune's eyebrows shot all the way up to the top of his forehead.

"Something wrong Jaune?" Pyrrha watched as Jaune's expression changed several times, from shock to confusion to thoughtfulness and then finally…

Was he smirking?

"Huh," He put away the scroll, "It looks like we might be able to see the King soon."

Pyrrha's eyes went wide.

"Tomorrow he'll be making a trip down to the hospital where he might pay a visit to the victims of the incident and their families, after that he will be going down to parliament to make a speech…or something like that I guess." Jaune nodded.

 _Before I meet with him again, I'd better prepare myself accordingly, I should go ask Nora about how the breakfast stall is doing, hopefully I can put myself in a better light with His Majesty, I don't want to let them down like father did._ Jaune thought to himself.

"Oh…" Pyrrha did not really know what to feel, but it seemed like it could be something worth something to watch, after all how often did one get to see an actual member of royalty in the flesh?

"Besides, we can also take the time to visit Team RWBY while we're at it," Jaune stood up and stretched his back, feeling the blood rush to his extremities while he was at it, "Well let's go then," He offered his hand to Pyrrha, "We have a long day ahead of us."

She took it gratefully and with a smile as both headed back to their dormitory, one thought egging her on in the back of her mind:

Hey what do you know? Maybe she had a chance after all.

* * *

 _ **Meanwhile,**_

Eventually, at some point down the line, after Yang had behaved herself for as long as period a time as she could have been forced by the rest of her team to, the guards returned and loosened her cuffs, unfortunately that might have been that much better for the blonde brawler, because now the cuffs were loosely banging on her wrists. They were not loose enough to try to forcibly slip her hands through them, but they were annoying enough that it seriously grated on her and it was irritating enough that she could not do anything about it.

Still, for the sake of her team and herself, she held her tongue and arms close in case the guards decided to tighten them all over again.

Team RWBY had lapsed into a sort of comfortable silence as the day had worn on and turned into night, each finding their own things to distract themselves from the eternal boredom of the cell, as it turned out, prison was a uniquely boring experience.

Ruby had taken counting everything she could count, from the number of visible bricks on the walls around to leaning on the bars and trying to count all of them from as far down the hallway as she could see from one end to other, repeatedly losing count and resetting again and again.

Weiss was, as always, preoccupied with her nails; it was a wonder to the rest of the team that she was able to maintain such attention for such a lengthy period of time on just that one thing, especially since she obviously did not have a file on her person at the moment. In fact she was actually already planning what she would do with them when she got out.

Blake was sitting in one corner of the cell, doing her best to catch small naps to pass the time and reflect on her own actions. While everyone had agreed on it, it had been her after all that had pushed the issue first, making it sorta her fault for the mess they were in.

And Yang was sitting with her back to the wall, legs crossed, fingers fidgeting as body rocking back and forth. So in hindsight it had been a _very_ bad idea to get worked up enough to attack the councillor, while she was somewhat remorseful for it given the situation her team was in now, she still felt that he thoroughly deserved it.

It was a very fine line to cross when it came to her birth-mother and step-mother.

All of them supposed it was too much to hope for any kind of relief, or rather in the case of Ruby and Blake, that the relief might possibly come from their prince in Beacon with the King at his side. Blake had wanted to give Ruby a harsh scolding for the near slip up on her part, but having not had a moment of privacy seen they were unceremoniously hauled out of the room by security, thrown into a van and taken some distance to a holding cell and told to shut up and wait for further news on their fate.

It would have been much easier if they had the courtesy to leave a book or a magazine or something, but nothing, and so Team RWBY had been left to their own devices. Well Ruby did try to get them to play "I spy" with her for a few minutes, they quickly ran out of ideas in the flat grey cell after Ruby started using eye colours in the game.

Well it was not that hard to spot who had purple, blue and amber eyes against a dull grey-ish background anyway.

And so they all idled about in the relative peace and quiet of their cell, unaware that just outside…

"What?" Taiyang flatly replied to the confirmation that he would not be able to visit his daughters at the moment, "What do you mean I can't visit my daughters? I'm their father for crying out loud! They're _minors_ being held in a _prison_!" He protested angrily.

The woman at the desk sighed and rubbed her forehead, "They're _not_ in a prison Mr. Xiao Long they've just been put in a holding cell until Ms. Xiao Long cools off and the hearing can continue."

"Well I see no reason as to why I can't visit them now." Taiyang snarled and bared his teeth in front of the clerk, here he was, his daughters in trouble, and the thing obstructing him from immediately going to their aid?

The goddamn bureaucracy.

This was why dealing with the Grimm was so much easier in his opinion, with the Grimm you could just –or at least he preferred- punch them until they were a black, formless mist, not so when it came to _other people_. Now _those_ you had to _actually_ deal with, as in talk to and try to make sense with and Taiyang was having a really hard time dealing with this one I particular.

"Well I mean no, not at all Mr. Xiao Long," The sarcasm figuratively dripped out of her mouth, "Not unless you consider something as important as the time a reason that you might not be able to visit your daughters, nothing at all." A brief adjustment of her glasses just to accentuate the point.

Taiyang wondered briefly what sort of jail sentence he would get if he smashed the woman's face in with his fist.

Probably twenty life sentences or something, plus being stripped of his Hunter license, he looked at his watch, well she had a point he supposed, at 10pm in the middle of the night it _was_ a rather late time for this sort of visiting to take place, on the other hand it was also a rather urgent matter that he preferred not to put off. So taking a rather deep breath to try and calm himself down, he straightened up and looked at the woman in the eye.

"Look it's just for a few minutes only, I just want to make sure they're ok." He stated in as conciliatory tone as possible, tapping his fingers and trying to look remorseful.

The woman seemed to give an understanding sigh but shook her head, "Unfortunately I really cannot grant you access."

"But I'm their father!" Came the indignant protest.

"And the rules are the rules." Was the flat reply.

Taiyang scrunched up his face for a moment, "Look Miss, how would you feel if that was your own daughters in there?" As a teacher, Taiyang really hated playing that card, that sort of weird comparison acting as if the circumstances, feelings and people were the same _if_ it had been 'the other person in his shoes' so to speak, "Wouldn't you want to make sure they were ok?" He nearly banged his head onto the countertop for saying that, not just saying that but also trying to play up the emotions on his face.

"I'd be wondering what they did to get into that position and whether or not they deserved it." Another cold and flat response.

"Can't you just make an exception this once?"

"If I did that I'd have to make an exception for _everyone_." Ah of course, he should not have expected anything other than a mixtape of standardized answers. He often wondered if every member of the vast and infinite bureaucracy had a special cheat sheet filled with those sorts of answers that they relied on at all times.

Silence passed between them.

"If that is all then-"

"Five minutes!" Taiyang shouted and clasped his hands together, placing his lower arms flat on the counter and bowing his head, this was the absolute last card he could play as much it disgusted him, at least he had not forgotten how to put on the act. It used to work when Raven was still around.

Pathetically begging.

"That's all I ask, just five minutes… _please…"_ He positively whined out the last word, "My two girls are _all_ that I have left! So please…just this one time…"

" _Please_ understand, I can't just let anyone into the holding cells area just because-"

"Al-alright then…it's ok..." Taiyang sniffed and turned away, "I know you're just doing your job, I'm sorry to disturb you like this…sorry I'll just going now…" He began walking away slowly with his face in his hands.

 _Wait for it….wait for it…_ He deliberately shuffled his feet slowly.

"Alright look Mr. Xiao Long," She inhaled deeply and exhaled sharply, "…I guess five minutes _couldn't_ hurt…" The woman sighed and let her shoulders down.

 _Score!_ Taiyang resisted pumping his fist and put on the most thankful and charming smile that he could manage as he turned around, he strode right up to the counter with the biggest smile on his face.

"Thank you so much!" He let a little tear fall from one of his eyes as he sniffed, "I promise I'm forever in your debt Ms…" He looked at her nametag.

 _ARNBJÖRG SVARTHEIM_

 _How on Remnant do you pronounce something like that?!_ Taiyang's eyes bugged out.

" _Ma'am_ ," He saved himself just in time, "I'm forever in your debt ma'am." He repeated.

 _That was close._ He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead.

The woman with the unpronounceable name sighed and rubbed her forehead in a long suffering manner, "Don't mention it just make it quick…I-" Their conversation was rudely interrupted when the doors behind them burst open loudly and a tall woman formally dressed in an Atlesian military uniform strode…no…more like she _stormed_ all the way up to the counter right beside Taiyang, barely even giving the tiniest bit of acknowledgement to the man.

"Winter Schnee, here to see Weiss Schnee… _please._ " Much to Taiyang's surprise, despite the rather hostile way in which she had approached the counter, her voice was measured, controlled and formal, there was not so much as a hint or trace of the anger that he expected. On the other hand, her eyes were narrowed and spoke of frustration; he could see the way her lower jaw ground against her upper jaw, the flaring of her nostrils and the ever-so-slight twitch in one of her eyes.

She may have been able to control her words, but her body language was an entirely different matter, and speaking of body language…

Taiyang moved away slightly, turned and leaned on his countertop, if he had a bucket of popcorn right now he would be munching it through to watch the inevitable drama and fireworks that were going to come up from this.

The woman at the desk hummed a rather irritated sounding noise, "I'm sorry but you may not visit Ms. Schnee at this moment in time."

"Excuse me?" Winter had this hilariously incredulous face on that Taiyang struggled not to snicker at, "And why is that?" Her eyebrows were creasing.

 _Oh this is gonna be good._ Taiyang chortled in his head.

"Because it's past visiting hours," The same flat tone and reply that she had used on Taiyang.

"Excuse me?" Winter Schnee, elder sister of Weiss Schnee, lifted a curious eyebrow as she stared down the clerk at the desk with cold eyes, she leaned over the desk dangerously, using her height to loom over the now woman with the unpronounceable name in front of her, "Repeat again why exactly I am not able to visit my sister?" The narrowed eyes were basically daring the woman to stand in her way a second time.

 _Little sister huh…I think Ruby mentioned something about the Schnee girl once; I guess this must be her elder sister…?_ Taiyang stroked his chin thoughtfully.

Taiyang felt a small measure of pity in his heart for the desk clerk.

"Hmm, it seems like those huntresses are becoming quite popular these days…" The woman muttered under her breath.

"Excuse me?" At that exact moment, Winter looked like she was about to reach over the counter and strangle the woman to death from the way her fingers were twitching, Taiyang kept quiet and let the scene roll on, not entirely willing to start a fight. Curiously, Winter seemed to actually relax a little from her sudden outburst, she pushed away from the counter and took a deep breath.

And then she _smirked_.

Taiyang immediately had a very bad feeling.

"Either you allow me to see my sister immediately…" Winter kept the smirk on as her eyes widened, "Or I'll call up the Vale council and ask _them_ to ask _you_ to allow me to see my sister."

"…You think just because you can ring up the council that gives you the right to just waltz in here acting like you own the place?" Now there was a sharp tone in the clerk's voice.

"I-"

"Say you wouldn't happen to be the elder sister of Weiss Schnee would you?" Taiyang interrupted, before it turned into a full-blown fight between the two, he really wanted to just get it over with and meet with his daughters.

Winter turned her head and gave him a suspicious look, "That's right, but what are you-"

"Then that settles it!" Taiyang smiled and shrugged his shoulders, he turned back to the clerk, "She can just follow me in since we're both going to see the same people right?"

The clerk sighed, but before she could speak, Taiyang was already talking again, "It shouldn't be any extra trouble for you for you right? We're just going to see the same people."

"What business do you have with my sister?" Winter's voice was positively icy, Taiyang noticed that one hand appeared to be going for what looked like a sword at her side and he could almost feel a shiver go up his spine, but he was a professional hunter with decades of experience under his belt, if this woman wanted to go for it…

 _No, stick to the plan,_ Taiyang sighed and shook his head, "If I'm not wrong your sister is a member of my daughter's team, so please calm down and we can sort this out properly alright?" He held out both of his hands in front of him.

Winter glared at him, her eyes searching his eyes for any malicious intent, Taiyang simply stood his ground, "You're concerned for your younger sister, and I'm concerned for my daughters, so let's work together on this ok?" That finally seemed to get her to back down, and she let herself relax a little.

The clerk's eyes flitted between the two.

"So is it done? Are we allowed to go?" The clerk gave him a bit of a stink-eyed look, but nodded, "It should be fine, I've gotten a hold of someone to escort you, just don't take too long." She nodded.

"Thank you, we're in your debt." Taiyang gave a short bow of acceptance.

"Now if you would take a moment while the guard comes down…" The door beside the counter opened and a man in what appeared to be a guard uniform came out.

"Yes did you call Ms. Svartheim?" The man asked.

 _So that's how you pronounce her last name…_ Taiyang lifted a curious eyebrow.

"Mr. Everson, would you please escort both Ms. Schnee and Mr. Xiao Long to Team RWBY's cell?"

The guard looked perplexed, "At this time? What's going on here?"

" _Please just do it_ ," Ms. Svartheim growled, the guard looked at Winter and Taiyang, the former of which shot him a rather dark look.

"…Fine, on your head be it." He motioned for them to follow him as he walked through the door, Winter and Taiyang hot on his heels. They followed him down corridors, through hallways and past various doors until they came to an elevator where the guard ushered them in. Both entered silently and occupied opposite corners of the elevator at the back while the guard remained in front of them.

The silence was extremely awkward.

Taiyang opened his mouth to say something to break the awkwardness, but Winter beat him to the punch.

"Thank you for helping me back there." Winter stated, her face remaining straight and level as the lift rolled on, Taiyang sneaked a glance, she was looking straight forward with her hands clasped behind her back standing perfectly upright, "I apologize for my outburst just now, I had a…rather rough ride on the way here."

 _Rough in this case being getting the actual clearance to meet with Weiss, I don't know what the council were trying to do stalling me like that, but I'll definitely make them regret it somehow._ Winter kept her thoughts firmly to herself.

"Not a problem Ms. Schnee, I know the damn bureaucrats can be a pain to deal with." Taiyang nodded in return.

Winter turned ever so slightly to face him with a thin smile on her lips, "It's rare to get such good-natured aid in this world nowadays," She seemed almost wistful, as if remembering something, "And I think you have me at a disadvantage Mr…?" She raised both eyebrows.

"Ah!" Taiyang grinned and held his hand out, "I'm Taiyang Xiao Long, father of Ruby Rose and Yang Xiao Long." He introduced himself.

"I'm Winter Schnee, elder sister of Weiss Schnee, it's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Xiao Long." Even though he already knew her name, Winter still chose to formally introduced herself with a small bow as she took his hand and shook it firmly, "I suppose it's only obvious that you are here to meet with your children as I am to meet with my sister."

"Haha, yeah…kids these days…" Taiyang shook his head and leaned on his corner, Winter turned away and the silence resumed itself.

Soon the elevator reached the designated floor, "We're h-" Their attendant did not even have time to finish his sentence before Winter was out of the elevator even before the doors had fully opened.

"I think you should just wait around here pal," Taiyang patted him on the back and followed after the fast-walking Winter.

They moved quickly down the corridor, past all the empty cells, aiming for the one right at the end with the lights turned on. Taiyang looked out the window and noted that they were quite a distance up. They came upon Team RWBY sitting rather glumly about their cell, none of them were really paying any attention to anything at all, just sort of aimlessly shifting their bodies to and fro with no purpose whatsoever, not even looking up when Taiyang and Winter appeared at the bars.

Taiyang stepped back and took in the scene before him; Ruby was lying spread-eagled on the floor, her face empty as her eyes flicked back and forth, Yang was at one side, holding her knees and rocking back and forth as though she were a swing swaying in the wind. Taiyang was quite shocked to see both of his normally rather energetic daughters so lethargic and dead, he opened his mouth to say something.

Once again however, Winter was way ahead of him, seeing her younger sister on the bench inside, fiddling pointlessly with her nails, completely uncaring and unconcerned for her surroundings stripped away some of the initial worry for her wellbeing, at first Winter was had been preoccupied by thoughts of how badly she would shove the SDC's lawyers up the Vale council's asses if they had mistreated her little sister in any way shape or form and use that to basically get her free.

On the other hand, seeing her attending to herself in such a carefree manner sort of robbed those thoughts away.

"Weiss!" She verily screeched, making everyone including Taiyang jump in fright from the sudden, piercing cry, Team RWBY looked up in astonishment, Weiss's jaw in particular hit the floor as she leapt of the bench and charged to the bars with her arms outstretched.

"Winter!" She was positively beaming, "You came-OW!" Right as she reached the bars, Winter reached through them and chopped the top of Weiss's head with her hand, sending the heiress face first into the bars before tumbling in a heap onto the floor.

"You _goof_!" Winter growled angrily as she knelt down, "You had me so worried! I thought you were in trouble when they hauled you out of the hearing like that!" She growled as she _glared_ Weiss into submission, "And here I find you idling on a bench fidgeting and daydreaming!"

At that moment, Weiss would have loved it if the floor could have opened up and dropped her down into the next floor, Winter continued on, "You have a lot –and I mean _a lot_ \- of explaining to do young lady, you _know_ the White Fang has it out for us! You _know_ we have a target painted on us! You _know_ they would love nothing more than a chance to catch you and…" Winter shook off the last few words and continued, "What're _you doing_ wandering around picking fights with them anyway?!"

Weiss was silent, and averted her gaze from Winter's.

"So what do you have to say for yourself?" Winter's voice was cold, and yet there was a strong element of concern in it.

"…Nothing, I let you down, I let myself down and I let my family down." Weiss's tone was remorseful despite the dryness with which it was conveyed, she was looking down bashfully as she stood up and dusted herself off, the remainder of Team RWBY remained silent, Taiyang chose to make his presence felt at this point, coming forward all the way to the bars.

"So…" He pressed his face to the bars, "Am I gonna get some acknowledgement here or what?"

Both Ruby and Yang jumped and turned simultaneously when they heard the voice, their eyes widening in shock and disbelief, they raced over to him.

Ruby was first, "Dad!" She nearly screamed as she threw herself at him and wrapped her arms around him past the bars, "Get me out of here! It's boring and I'm hungry and tired and thirsty!"

Taiyang smirked and leaned forward, "Hi bored, hungry, tired and thirsty…" He nodded to each of the cell's occupants in turn.

Yang's eyes went wide as she realised what was coming next, "No…" She whispered quietly.

"I'm dad," Taiyang was grinning like a maniac.

"Daaaaaad…" Ruby whined and collapsed to her knees while Yang slumped against the bars, Weiss sighed and faceplamed while Blake cocked an eyebrow.

 _Like father like daughter?_ She wondered to herself.

"Pffft." A sharp exhalation of breath could be heard, Taiyang's head spun just in time to see Winter cover her mouth, though the upturning of her cheeks gave her away, she wiped her mouth off quickly and adopt an overly uptight posture with a straight face, too little too late though, she had already been spotted. She made a face that basically said 'You will not speak of this…AT ALL'.

Despite this though, Taiyang did not pursue the matter, it occurred to him that angering the elder Schnee girl was probably not in his best interests, besides it seemed for the time being at least that they were all on the same side right?

"Oh come on! That was pretty good!" He insisted as he leaned forward again, "It's a classic."

"You can't be serious…" Weiss narrowed her eyes.

"Oh I'm deadly serious Ms. Schnee," Taiyang smirked again, "Or shouldn't it be _dad_ ly serious?"

Winter cleared her throat very loudly, loud enough to get the attention of everyone present, unfortunately when she did so her voice hitched just a little high, and she was clearly trying to suppress a grin on her face, turning it into a rather wide smirk instead.

"Perhaps instead of wasting our time cracking jokes," She scratched the tip of her nose, "Maybe we should we coming up with ways to get out of this situation that you landed yourselves in?"

"Not much time left for five minutes," Taiyang noted.

"Pfft," Winter shrugged, "Let's see how far we can push 'we lost track of time' for."

* * *

 _ **The next day,**_

 _The appearance of the King of Vale marks the first major public appearance that the House of Vale has made since the attack on the Royal Enclaves two years ago, the attack is believed to have been both planned and orchestrated by the White Fang terrorist group although to this day, their motivations for it remain uncertain._

 _With that aside this morning the King of Vale paid a very surprising visit to the victims of the Highway 42 incident in the Vale General Hospital, his presence provided consolation to the victims and the families of the victims._

"It was really a surprise to see him come all the way down here…I…I…I just…you know it's not every day that someone so important comes down to see you." A young woman said.

"I think it's really great that someone like him came down to see them, it really shows that…that someone out there really cares and err…it's really just amazing that he came all the way here in person." One man said.

 _Reports suggest that the King intends address a gathering of Parliament in the afternoon, it is not yet known exactly what issues he might bring up although there has been speculation in the wake of his visit to the hospital that it might concern the Highway 42 incident although there still has not yet been any confirmation of such events._

 _We go now live to the Parliament House where a large crowd has gathered to see the King in person._

Camera pans over a crowd lining the road outside the Vale Parliament house

" _This is truly a historic day for the Kingdom of Vale, as far as anyone can remember the House of Vale has…has not made their presence felt like this in many decades, here we can see the crowds are absolutely jubilant, everyone's excited, everyone wants to catch their once-in-a-lifetime glimpse of the King, people are waving flags, there are bouquets of flowers lining the streets, there is just this incredible celebratory atmosphere around us…"_

The roadside was completely jam-packed with spectators and bystanders all waiting with baited breath for the appearance of the King. There was a loud hustle and bustle all about Team JNPR currently in the middle of the crowd; people had clambered up onto lampposts, rooftops, tables and chairs, all hoping to catch their once-in-a-lifetime chance of seeing the King of Vale in person.

For one person in particular though, there was a bit of a problem…

"WhereisheWhereisheWhereisheWhereisheWhereisheWhereisheWhereishe?!" Nora chanted loudly as she repeatedly hopped up and down, she was rather short compared to the rest of her –very tall- team and so struggled to get a good view of the road in front, she growled in frustration while the other three gave her sympathetic looks.

"Should be soon now." Jaune checked his watch, "Unless there's a delay I think he should be just on time, which is in five or so minutes." He shrugged.

Growling again in frustration Nora looked around her for something to climb on, and then had a brainwave, she placed both her hands and her leader's shoulders and leapt up and onto his back without asking for permission.

"Gah!" Jaune yelped in surprise and stumbled as Nora made her weight felt, "Nora what're you doing?!" He barely caught himself just in time to avoid sending the both of them crashing to the ground as the hammer maiden adjusted herself on his back.

"Well since you're the tallest, I may as well use you to catch a look." Nora explained flatly as she settled her chin on top of his head with her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around his torso.

 _Well that's Nora for you._ Jaune muttered inwardly as Pyrrha shot Nora a dirty look that did not go entirely unnoticed by the hammer maiden's companion.

 _I hope Jaune picks up on Pyrrha's feelings soon; I don't want to have to go through the whole of Beacon watching them dance around like this…_ Ren tried not to pay that look much mind and focused on the road ahead.

They continued waiting together at the back of a massive crowd, throngs of people lined the street on either side, many buildings on both sides of the road had their windows thrown open with people peeking out of them; the roadside had been lined with barricades with policemen standing at intervals, colourful flags and banners decorated the entire scene, a few people were even holding flowers.

It was quite the spectacle.

The sheer turnout surprised Jaune, he had not expected his family to be quite so loved in the City of Vale, back home the general reaction to the appearance of one of the royal family was nearly always something along the lines off:

"Oh look, _another_ one of those who _isn't_ covered in shit."

To which the proper response was:

"Bloody peasants."

Although he rarely used it himself, he had heard Marina use it on the few times that they had gone out together.

And then there was a sudden volume increase in the ambient crowd noise, as if someone had turned the volume dial on the speaker from four up to eleven, the noise seemed to be emanating from somewhere far off in the distance, and from the sound of it Jaune already knew what was happening.

"Looks like he has arrived…" He nodded, both Pyrrha and Ren immediately stood on their tip toes to try and get a better view while Nora's eyes widened and she suddenly became even bouncier on Jaune's back, the prince-in-hiding was having a rather hard time ignoring the assets pressed against his back.

"Ican'tseehimIcan'tseehimIcan'tseehimIcan'tseehimIcan'tseehimwhereishe?!" Nora bounced up and down, making it difficult for Jaune to maintain his balance.

"N-nora calm down!" Jaune swung his hands around to the hammer maiden's back to try and steady the both of them.

And then of course there he was.

The sedan car stopped quite some distance from the Parliament building flanked on either side by Vale policemen on motorcycles, and inside the car…

"I think I'd like to go for a walk." The King said, Dahlia who was in the front seat of the car turned around and exchanged a worried expression with her twin.

"Are you sure your majesty?" Dahlia raised one eyebrow, "It could be dangerous, we still don't know what the security atmosphere is like, if the White Fang had a sniper somewhere out there-"

The King cut her off, "Well then perhaps my death would finally provoke the faceless masses to get off of their asses and do something about the Grimm, besides I have you for my safety don't I?" He looked back at them.

Daniel let out a small sigh of resignation, "Yes your majesty," he thumbed the transmit button on his radio set, "All units we are dismounting for the remainder of the way, everyone stay cool and keep your eyes out, it's only about two hundred or so meters from where we are to the stairwell." He spoke out clearly.

Receiving affirmations from both the uniformed and plain-clothes protectors, he got out of the car from his side and opened the door for the King, the elderly man got out slowly, feeling his age in his joints and muscles but ensuring that he kept his composure at all times for the audience in front of him.

The moment he stepped out of the car, the din actually seemed to quiet down a little, replaced by some sort of mesmerized awe as he made his presence felt, a quick and minor adjustment of his suit and he started walking slowly down the road looking left and right at the astonished and wondrous looks on the Vale populace's faces as though most of them were unable to comprehend what was happening before them.

He walked slowly but purposefully with the Protector twins flanking him on both sides as the rest of the motorcade continued on foot along at the edges of the road. He took in the sights and the sounds, the banners decorating various buildings, flags being held up high by waving hands, the few who had daringly climbed up onto lampposts to have a better view…

And a single, lone flower that was just thrown from the side onto the middle of the road.

Dahlia and Daniel were immediately on guard with fighting stances and with their sabres drawn glinting in the sunlight, eliciting shocked gasps from a few people, the King immediately held one hand out to signal them to stand down, he had seen the person who had thrown the flower. He walked over to it, picked it up gently and moved to the side of the road where a little girl was standing just at the height of the barricade.

"I think this belongs to you Miss." The King smiled and held the flower out to the girl.

"No…" The little girl shook her head, "I…I just wanted you to have it." She bowed her head bashfully.

The King's eyebrows went up rather high in clear surprise, and then they lowered as a wide smile crossed his face as he held onto the flower and nodded. Patting the girl on the head and rubbing her chin, "In that case I accept your gift, thank you very much little miss." The girl nodded with a wide smile on her face as she stepped back into the crowd.

The King gingerly stood back up from his position, he was rather elderly and not possessed of the same youthful exuberance and agility, meaning he had to be careful of his back. It most certainly would not do to suffer from arthritis in front of a crowd of his own people. As he did so, he was greeted with a rather soft sounding "Your Majesty". He noticed a woman with her hand on the girl's shoulder –apparently the girl's mother- bowing her head low in respect.

And she was not the only one.

One by one, the same two words were repeated over and over again from various people both near and far…

"Your Majesty," echoing out slowly over the masses as men, women and children alike bowed and curtsied to pay their respects to the old man standing quietly on the road.

With each time the words were spoken they were almost always spoken softly but with strength and purpose, with neither cheer nor sorrow nor anger, in fact there was little emotion that could be felt in the voices that came out, instead there what came out was only a deep reverence and respect for the head of the House of Vale, their former rulers and governors from not even a century ago, who still reigned in their own small region.

The King straightened himself up and looked around to see the many bowed heads that surrounded him.

"Hmm," He hummed, sounding rather impressed at the spectacle as he fingered the flower, "I didn't think we still had that effect on people."

"Your Majesty," This one came from right beside him, from Dahlia as it were, "Perhaps it would be prudent to continue on our way."

"Yes indeed," The King nodded, "Thank you Ms. Greener for the firm reminder, I suppose we should be on our way now." He agreed and began walking the last one hundred meters or so to the parliament building, as did so, he scanned the faces amongst the crowd and then his eyes met with one face in particular.

He did not so much as twitch on seeing his grandson with a strange carrot-headed girl propped up on his back, his grandson had a rather anxious look on his face as they faced each other momentarily, the younger male seemed to look away rather hesitantly as if ashamed in some way.

 _Oh dear, well I hope he hasn't gone as soft as to be affected by my little reminder._ The King passed him over and continued moving on without a hint of having regarded Jaune as anything more than part of the scenery.

And as he turned away, he did not see the commotion that his grandson ended up being a part of.

"Holy Majesty!" Nora squealed loudly, "I think he saw us!" She shook fiercely from her positon on Jaune's back. Jaune was rather anxious to get her off not just before he really did not want to end up causing a scene, but also because her excitable nature made him rather unstable and he did not want to fall over in front of his grandfather.

"He did seem to linger for a moment on us…" Ren stroked his chin and nodded thoughtfully.

 _Well if there was anyone smart enough to figure it out I suppose it would be Ren._ Jaune felt a drop of sweat slide down his forehead.

"Nora I think it's time you got off of Jaune before both of you fall over." Pyrrha said in a concerned tone of voice.

"Ok." Nora replied and released Jaune, falling back down to the ground on her two feet as Jaune massaged his shoulders, "I don't think we'll be able to get in to watch his address to Parliament live, but let's hang around a little while longer and see if anything else happens."

Truth be told, Jaune really wanted to be able to see his grandfather one last time before he left at least, he had Nora pull up the accounting sheets –all of which had been handled by the resident heiress- of the breakfast stall and they had found that aside from that one time wherein they had wrecked nearly everything in their food fight…

They _were_ breaking even.

He wanted to at least be able to tell his grandfather that, hopefully at least clear up that one misunderstanding before it got blown out of proportion and ended with his elder sister potentially catching hell because of it.

Because of him.

And so he doth waited for his chance to speak to the King again.

As the King began his entrance into the building, on one of the upper floors, both headmasters watched the spectacle.

"Well…" Ironwood muttered and folded his arms, "He sure is receiving quite the adulation." He dryly noted.

Ozpin hummed a non-response before grinning widely, "Yes of course he would," He sipped from his cup of coffee and looked down into it as if deep in thought before looking back up, "The people of Vale have never forgotten the House that once ruled over them for centuries before the Succession War."

"Do you really think this will work? He's just a figurehead after all…" Ironwood sounded rather sceptical.

"I have no doubt it will," There was an element of mirth in Ozpin's voice, he seemed to find the whole thing rather amusing in contrast to his rather stiff colleague, "Figureheads, symbols…there is a strange meaningless and yet all too attractive power in those things, they have the capacity to inspire above all else, driving men to cling to them steadfastly with all their might, desperately defending them to their last…" Ozpin trailed off.

"Doesn't it all seem rather quaint?" He raised his eyebrows at the General.

"I just hope this works, I've had enough to deal with over the last few days." Ironwood sighed greatly as he turned away from the window.

"Well I think you should calm down a little," Ozpin chided, "At least it will be one thing of your mind."

"And I still have to deal with the question of the prototypes…" He rubbed his forehead.

"Ah well…that's…" Ozpin took a sip of coffee, "I don't think anyone can really help you with that one…" He paused for a short while before continuing, "I think we should go now, the King's speech will be starting soon, and I don't think we should miss a single word of it if we can."

They headed down to the Parliament Chamber together, despite the odd looks that were thrown their way; both took seats at the back so that as little attention as possible could be focused on them as the King entered the room to a round of –well it felt that way to Ozpin at least- rather half-hearted applause, certainly the reception here was a little more chilly compared to that of the Vale citizenry outside.

The King took his position at the stand with his Protectors right behind him and waved the applause down gently.

"Thank you all for having me here today," He started off as he gripped the podium in front of him and looked around the room as cameras flashed all around him, "It's a wonderful privilege to be able to address all of you here, I know that _we,_ " He gestured to himself as he spoke for his whole family, "Have not really had the opportunity to do this in some time, and that is of course thanks to erm…" He clicked his tongue, " _Certain events_ that we have been rather busy with."

"Now," He cleared his throat, "You're probably wondering at this point if I really just came down here to say 'hello' or if I might…in some circles they would say an ' _ulterior motive_ ' for me to make an appearance like this, and you would of course be right to a certain extent, I'll be frank with you now…" He took a deep breath.

"I'm here because in the direct aftermath of what you now term the 'Highway 42 incident', the scouts of the Royal Legion reported a sharp decrease in the level of Grimm activity on our borders beyond the Grey Scar, and with that in mind I came down here specifically to find out why exactly that is so since it is a direct reversal of a the trend of Grimm activity over the last decade which has remained at a mostly constant level, and so I took the opportunity to investigate for myself why this should be so." He paused to let it sink in.

"Imagine my surprise when I found out that the cause of this was due to the sheer negativity that had resulted from a group of huntresses- trainees even- attempting to takedown an organisation of extremists and terrorists on their own with no support but each other, the information given to me was almost laughable to an extent and I suppose…" He trailed off, "Does speak to an extent of their…courage I suppose, although in this case I think recklessness is just as appropriate isn't it?" He lifted his eyebrows for a moment.

"On the other hand I couldn't help but notice the sheer amount of… _loathing_ let us say that is being piled on these trainees during the short course of my stay here, and to this I must ask the question of…why?" He looked directly at the councillors around him, searching their faces slowly, "Why does anyone needlessly choose to pursue these young women to the very ends of this world for their mistakes, it is true that their mistakes have resulted in the deaths of many and much destruction, and it is true that despite their best intentions very little came off the incident, and yet I must ask why? Why the need for such a level of hatred and disgust, why the need to persecute them to such an extent, I do believe that in the course of their hearing they will receive an appropriate and most suitable punishment as befitting of their irresponsible actions and so I ask why the need to push so extremely hard against them, it already feels less like a proper trial and more like a witch hunt dedicated to finding a person to blame for this issue rather than administer consequence to an action."

"This are trying times my friends, I don't believe that there is any need to commit to anything more or less than a… _proportional response_ , there should be no need for any sort of lynching or the like now is there? Instead of endlessly broiling in our own negativity and finding things to direct our hatred towards we should instead, be looking to correct the mistakes that we have made yes?"

"So I do henceforth beseech the men and the women who are before me now, do not be complacent!" He raised his voice sharply for the last words, "We may be living in the time of peace now! But it must be remembered first and foremost always!" He raised a declarative finger, "Humanity, now and forever more has always stood on the very precipice to annihilation, ready to topple over the edge at the slightest push," The strong and bold words echoed through the chamber, "The Grimm are forever on our heels my fellow men, gnawing at our borders day and night, entire villages disappear without news, and so it falls to the courageous men and women who have dedicated their entire lives to holding back the endless tide of darkness that threatens to engulf us at any point of time."

"I neither claim to express support or disgust at the actions of the Beacon Academy trainees, the only thing I will say for certain is that we are approaching a time of change, we cannot remain in this state of stagnation for much longer, for day by day, we fight. For year by year, we die. Decade after endless decade, and yet our circumstances remain the same as they were even in the aftermath of the great war, huntsmen endlessly go out on missions, saving villages and towns in the wilderness, escorting caravans of refugees and merchants, destroying pockets of Grimm before they get too large, sweeping through areas to ensure they remain clear, propping up endlessly failing walls and barricades with their own corpses…and to what end I ask?"

"We ourselves should know best, after all, when the White Fang so brazenly attacked us and not only breached our defensive lines but our walls as well, we stopped the hole up by piling up our own dead." He let the thought really sink into the silence only broken by the whirring of cameras, "So many dead…and so many more injured, and yet even now we have yet to fully recover our strength, in the meantime we have become ever more dependent on the courtesy that hunters have afforded to us by taking on missions that we ourselves have given out onto the mission boards around Remnant. And what that means ladies and gentlemen, is that trust plays an ever more important part of our world than it ever has before, yes, we do not allow hunters to run free lest they let their belief in their work turn them into self-entitled fools and rogues, but it is the unfortunate price we pay…so that we may sleep in peace."

"And so it is on that note that I ask that whatever the consequence that may come from this incident, I urge restraint on the part of everyone involved, councillor, student, teacher and soldier alike." He trailed his eyes slowly over the crowd until he found both of the headmasters not-quite-hiding at the back.

He barely stopped a smirk from appearing on his face.

He decided not to let the speech drag on for any longer than it absolutely needed to, after all the primary purpose was not to provide any kind of explicit support, but to provide just enough implicit support and throw in enough randomized rambling and just-slightly-coherent-enough babbling to obfuscate and confuse all the people who were watching the speech as to just exactly what his 'ulterior motive' was. Of course as he, his grandson and the two headmasters knew, his actual motive had more or less been fulfilled a day prior, he was just sticking around now for the heck of it.

And so as the day drew slowly to a close, with goodbyes said and much waving of hands at people, the King retired back to his room at the Raffle House and prepared to leave that night when he received a most unexpected guest.

"Your Majesty, his highness Prince Jean is here," A voice rang out

 _Oh? What does the little prince want now?_ The King rubbed his chin, "Do send him in please." He received quite a surprise when Prince Jean of Armorica, or more commonly known as "Jaune Arc", damn near busted the door down in his hurried rush to get into the room, the King did not bat an eyelid at him but merely took in the prince's rather tired looking state, from the sweat pouring down his brow to the fact that his chest was rising and falling visibly.

"Your Majesty," He prostrated himself as always.

"Do rise and calm yourself before you have a stroke," The King said with a hint of amusement in his voice, it was rather humorous seeing his grandson in such a flustered state, as Jaune rose of the floor, the King continued speaking, "And now do tell me what it is you wanted to talk to me about."

Jaune stood up straight and answered as best as he could, "I just…err…" And he lost his voice, he had come all the way down here to at least try to settle the issue of the breakfast stall, and yet right as he had prepared a whole speech in his head to try and stand up to the King…

He was now faltering.

"Cat got your tongue now?" The King was completely impassive, which stood in stark contrast to the wavering prince.

 _Inhale, count to ten, exhale, count to ten, inhale, count to ten, exhale_. Well that usually worked anyway, and with that in mind, Jaune finally was able to scramble enough thoughts together to form a coherent sentence.

"I wanted to talk about the breakfast stall that I… _funded_." Jaune stated firmly and before he could continue the King interrupted him.

"I know its breaking even."

Jaune prevented his jaw from falling off, "But…then…why…?" He slowly forced out.

"Why? Why what?"

"Why would you bring it up then?" Jaune kept his tone level, "If you know its fine, then why…?"

"Good question," The King smirked as he turned away and moved to the wardrobe to take out some more clothing, "Perhaps one day you will figure it out." He dumped them onto the bed beside a suitcase, "And if that really is all than-"

"Just one last thing," Jaune said as firmly as he could, and just kept the glare off his face, "I'm not my father or my mother or my eldest sister, if the time comes for it, then I know what I have to do, I will fulfil my duties."

"…of course," The tone used was flat, almost bored, as if it was something to be expected, "We know you will."

Well there was not much else for it, the House of Vale moved in even more cryptic ways than its own progeny could frequently understand, Jaune privately wondered if that had been the reason for his parents and elder siblings desertion from it, maybe they had just gotten tired of not getting a straight answer and having to deal with all that shit.

 _No, gotta stop thinking like that,_ Jaune shook his head as he re-joined his team in the lunge at the Raffle House, Nora immediately ran up to him and started shaking him again.

"Well what did he say?" Her eyes were brimming with excitement, "Will he see us?"

 _Oh that's right, I suggested we could try to go to the Raffle House to see the King for ourselves._ Jaune remembered but could only sigh.

"Sorry Nora, we're just peasants apparently."

"Aw," Nora pouted and settled back down and went back to her seat and plopped into it.

"But this whole mess still isn't over is it?" Pyrrha looked at Jaune who shook his head in response.

"No, I think tomorrow the hearing will continue, and we'd better be there to show RWBY our support."

"Yeesh, let's just hope Yang doesn't do anything stupid again." Nora commented.

"Nora…" Ren chided.

"What? I'm just saying she's lucky she's not in jail!"

* * *

 _ **The day after,**_

The next day found Team RWBY stuffed right back in the same room they had been in a few days' earlier for their hearing, this time though they were accompanied not just by Professor Ozpin, but also by both Taiyang Xiao Long and Winter Schnee. The team on the whole felt immeasurably more confident about their chances now, even Ozpin and Ironwood were both surprised to see the father of both Ruby Rose and Yang Xiao Long as well as the elder sister of Weiss Schnee.

As the committee members filed into the room, Ozpin took note of the fact that while Councilor Whitemore was seated in the center; Nyla was not for some reason; her replacement was a person that he did not recognize.

 _Was she replaced?_ He guessed it might have been because she was too easy on Team RWBY, but then again maybe she had left on her own, it was hard to tell with all the politicking sometimes.

After another round of rather redundant introductions –whereupon they learned that the new councillor's name was apparently Kieran-, and Whitemore began the hearing once again, Ozpin took a quick glance around the room, noticing that Nyla was now sitting at the side far away from the front, despite the question in his head, he dismissed the thought and refocused himself back on the coming hearing, it would not do to get distracted, they would not have a third chance at this.

"Perhaps we should continue where we left off shouldn't we?" Whitemore looked at the whole lot from behind his glasses, Team RWBY merely exchanged odd glances while Winter, Taiyang and Ozpin remained mostly impassive, "Well to start off with-"

"Well to start off with," Winter interrupted out of the blue, so immediately and _sharply_ that it quieted any argument for her interruption, "I'd like to ask for a reason as to why this committee decided to start a hearing on these girl's actions without the presence of one or more of their adult relatives in this very room with them." Despite its formal tone, it was a clear and harsh demand for an answer, and one that Winter knew was going to be hard, there was no way she going to let them dodge this question.

"Ms. Schnee-"

"Please call me Ms. Winter, I'd like to avoid any confusion with my little sister."

" _Ms. Winter,_ " Whitemore did not seem especially bothered, "I'm sure even you can agree that the consequences of their actions constituted a rather grave misconduct in the performing of their duties, in any event these students chose to take on a role with that necessitates a great sense of responsibility given their future profession, wouldn't you also say that this responsibility ought to have been well entrenched in their minds before they took up the profession?"

"I agree with you councillor," Winter nodded, "They _do_ have that responsibility, on the other hand though…" She leaned forward and clasped her hands together, "That is also entirely beside the point, and the question I'm posing is one of questioning whether or not the committee has been entirely fair in their treatment of the subjects here."

"Ms. Winter I do hope you understand what exactly it is that you're implying here," This time Kieran went forward, "I doubt getting charged for _contempt of court_ is something a highly-decorated Specialist like you would appreciate."

"Not at all councillor," The smile Winter had on her face was _deadly,_ "It's just that as far as I understand, the law of Vale still gives that Ms. Rose would still be considered a minor." And then Winter's eyes lit up for a moment, "I also wasn't aware this was a courtroom Councillor."

Ruby shuddered a little at that, the plan they had come up with had sounded incredible to both her and the rest of her team when Winter had first mentioned it, using the fact that she was a minor that was unaccompanied by an adult guardian. It had made her terribly uncomfortable considering that she had been doing her best to try and mature herself, of course so far she had been failing pretty badly at that from the looks of things, but hey…at least she was trying right?

Right?

"I do believe it was already pointed out that these students chose to take on a role with that necessitates a great sense of responsibility given their future profession." Kieran replied in an even tone.

"Well that may be true councillor," Winter barely stopped herself from scoffing, "I don't believe that sentiment applies to Ms. Rose here seeing as she is still only fifteen." She pointed out, "At least she would deserve to have her parents with her in the process of this hearing." She glanced at Taiyang at the end of her sentence; he nodded and gave her a thumb-up in response.

And before Kieran could respond, it was Taiyang who started talking, "That is indeed the question on my mind councillor, while I was certainly informed of this hearing, there was almost certainly a failure to ensure I was present together with my daughters for the hearing itself."

 _Huh, so is this the strategy to make this about the committee rather than Team RWBY, its risky but…_ Ozpin stroked his chin thoughtfully but said nothing, _Maybe they could pull it off?_ He folded his arms; he really wished he had a cup of coffee on hand now.

"We prefer to apply the same standards to everyone in our hearings, "There was a shaky note in Kieran's voice, but he remained surprisingly firm in the face of the two, "Besides if we're going to talk about adult guardians, who would be Ms. Belladonna's?" He asked, "As far as the records show, she is an orphan with no known blood relation, is that right Ms. Belladonna?"

"That is correct," Blake's voice was even and measured, betraying not a hint of emotion.

"So perhaps the both of you would like you provide a further suggestion as to this dilemma of ours?"

"I'm pretty sure that's what the Headmaster is here for Councillor." Winter stated as if it were obvious.

"So if that was what the Headmaster was for, then why did either of you feel the need to come all the way down?"

"What?" Taiyang looked rather indignant, "Are you saying that a father does not have the right to be with his children?"

"Mr. Xiao Long this trial is not about your children specifically-"

"So what is it about then?" Taiyang started raising his voice above all the others, "As far as I can tell from the previous hearing and this hearing, the only visible intention of this seems to be to try and throw an entire team of huntresses under the bus for doing what they believed to be right?"

"What they did was cause major destruction on a public highway and multiple casualties!"

"Which could have been avoided if only your own Police Department would do their job!" Now Winter was shouting, "As far as we know there has been no information released about their own efforts to halt the increasing crime rate perpetuated by the criminal Roman Torchwick or the White Fang!"

 _Those two are surprisingly in sync,_ Ozpin looked over at the both of them with an impressed look on his face, they could not have had a lot of time to prepare and plan and yet they were covering for each other seamlessly, that was certainly something interesting. He looked over Team RWBY and was surprised to find them staying mostly silent and impassive, occasionally Weiss or Ruby would flinch whenever anyone said something that sounded particularly damning to them, but otherwise they kept quiet, even Yang seemed to not want to get involved.

 _Is this part of the strategy? Letting Winter and Taiyang handle it?_ Ozpin was not sure what to think of it, while letting the adults handle the situation was a prudent thing to do considering the last time Team RWBY tried, on the other hand would it not have been just as good to show that the Team had learned from their mistakes and could stand up for themselves rather than just rely on the adults?

"How do you know that nothing is being done?"

"Well then enlighten me." Winter folded her arms.

"That's classified Ms. Schnee, or should I ask you to start revealing Atlesian Military secrets to justify why you lost an advanced robotic prototype to some common criminal?"

"That's-"

"If the lot of you are done arguing about semantics now…" And then Nyla's flat voice began speaking out from the side where all turned to face her, "Perhaps we could actually get on with the hearing?" She asked pointedly, apparently taking charge of the situation away from Kieran and Whitemore.

 _Ah, leave it to Nyla to inject common sense into something like this, well she is a professional bureaucrat after all,_ Ozpin thought wistfully, _unfortunately for her though, common sense is not what we need here if we want to win._

"I refuse to allow this sort of action to be condoned," Winter remained steadfast.

"Then you are well advised to bloody well _fuck off_ Ms. Winter," Somehow, the sheer deadpan in the voice only served to enhance the swearing, "Maybe in Atlas where your military controls everything could this sort of action be deemed something along the lines of _'acceptable casualties'_ ," There was an incredible sense of passive-aggressiveness in the air, "Here in Vale though, we…prefer to think in terms of…I suppose you could say ensuring such a thing doesn't happen again."

 _Dammit, if she had just remained quiet I could have dragged this thing forever!_ Winter grit her teeth, _Just when we were about to make everyone completely forget what this hearing was about._ _She has to ruin everything!_

"So if that is all, I politely request that you sit down and stop shouting quite so much." Nyla lifted an eyebrow.

"I will, but I'd like to see justification that there is more being done against the White Fang and criminals in Vale, that would certainly be one way of ensuring that trainees do not get more ideas into their heads and prevent future incidents such as these from happening." Winter explained thusly.

"Ms. Winter you are out of line here!" Whitemore called out.

"I'm out of line?" Winter laid a hand upon her chest, "I-"

"If we're going to talk about being out of line Councillor." Ozpin finally decided to make himself heard, "Perhaps we should talk about your bringing up needless points involving Mr. Xiao Long's family in the previous hearing."

"What?" Taiyang looked at Ozpin, "What did he bring up?"

"Councilor Whitemore apparently decided that the issue of Yang's mother and Ruby's mother was worth mentioning in terms of parental abandonment…and whether or not there was an effect on their subsequent Psyche." Ozpin explained in an as-a-matter-o-fact tone of voice.

"What?!" Taiyang looked quite enraged, "How dare he-!"

" _Mr. Xiao Long_ ," Nyla raised her voice, "Unless you want to join your daughter in _solitary confinement_ , I advise you to _stand down_."

"He just disrespected and tried to insinuate that my wife's disappearance caused my daughter to go crazy."

"And your angry response is not going to shit on everyone here Mr. Xiao Long?" The whole room felt the sharpness of that remark, even the stoic Winter seemed to flinch a little on hearing it, "No one is saying that your daughter is crazy so _stand, down, now_." And then Nyla noticed something, "Yes Ms. Xiao Long, do you have something to say?"

Yang stood up straight, "Yang? What're you-" Weiss started by was soundly cut off when Yang started speaking.

"Growing up the only person I ever knew was my step-mother, her name was Summer Rose," Yang said firmly, "I never knew until her disappearance that I had a birth mother, Summer was the only mother as far as I knew, she took care of us as a mother would, feeding us, clothing us, bathing us day after day. She was the best mother a daughter could possibly ask for…" Yang paused to catch her breath, "And then one day she left on a mission and disappeared, she never came back and we were forced to presume that she died, it's not uncommon for bodies to never be recovered, it was only after that that I found out that I had a different mother from Ruby, and so I wondered why…you want to know why I became so angry when you made your comments about them? It's because I wanted to know who she was, I wanted to know why she left me and I wanted to know why I didn't know about her even once before Summer, so I'm angry because you basically…smeared both of my mother's at the same time." She sat back down.

Silence reigned for a moment

And then Ruby's hand shot up.

"Yes Ms. Rose?" Nyla actually looked a little amused by the situation.

Ruby stood up, "When Summer disappeared I was too young to understand it, and I don't have that many memories of her, but I wanted to continue getting close to her, and so that's why I became a huntress, not just to be able to help people, but also to be able to understand why she did what she did. I'm sorry for the damage me and my team caused, I truly am and I know that it's ironic that my first attempt at really helping others only ended up destroying others, so I accept whatever the punishment it is that you deem necessary for us to redeem and reform ourselves, but I _politely request_ that my family and the remainder of Beacon Academy be kept out of this, is that too much to ask?"

"Ms. Rose," And now Whitemore was speaking, "Its fine if you wish to help people as you put it so succinctly, but like I believe it was mentioned before, your actions have resulted in an irresponsible amount of damage done to public property. The result is that not only are you but also Beacon Academy is now under suspicion of conspiracy."

"Councillor Whitemore-" Nyla started but was swiftly cut off.

"Look at them!" Taiyang ground his teeth and waved his hand over the whole community as he seemingly addressed the audience, "They don't give a damn about bringing justice for your dead! They don't care about making this a fair trial! The only they care about is their own damn political hides! They'll do anything if it means they can stay in power!"

That apparently had some kind of effect, because the room started whispering and murmuring quietly.

Ozpin could see that only Nyla really took the accusation in her stride with sip from her cup of water, the rest of the committee however had become noticeably more tense and more than a few were looking rather angry.

Taiyang continued on with only a moment's breath for pause, "You don't really understand the struggles we face! None of you do! You sit in comfortable chairs in air-conditioned offices whiling your time away on Rem-net while it is _young children_ labour in force to keep you safe. Do you know how that looks to the rest of us in the professional community? A bunch of old men and women throwing promising young trainees under a bus just because they themselves don't want to accept that they in a way are partially responsible for this accident?"

At the back of the room, a certain Prince was considering the words being spoken.

 _He's sort of right I think? But he's also being rather disingenuous isn't he? Isn't the point the fact that RWBY and incidentally, us have not yet been given that level of responsibility to operate with. Whatever Ruby, Weiss, Yang and Blake did they still broke the law by working outside their given obligation, they aren't really the ones guarding the wall yet even if their father says so, which wraps right back around to that whole being old enough to take responsibility for their own actions and therefore that means…_ Jaune rubbed his forehead; all that thinking was giving him a headache.

 _Still, if it gets them off the hook I suppose its fine._ Jaune pushed out his lower lip and stroked his chin, _I guess I don't entirely agree with it but…I'm not the one in the firing line either._

"Well if that is all than I suppose it is time for the committee to retire to formulate a decision," Nyla tapped her pen on the table idly, "In the meantime I suggest we all take five and meet back here in about half an hour or so, does anyone have a problem with this?" There was not an objection, "Alright then, Ms. Winter, Mr. Xiao Long and Headmaster Ozpin you may take your leave now, Team RWBY you will have to wait here until we make a decision, and that is all."

Ruby looked up hopefully at her father, who smirked and gave her a thumb up, "You did good back there," He faced Yang, "The both of you, now all that's left to do is to wait for the verdict, I'll just be outside in the meantime for a bit." He patted them both on the head.

"Thanks dad," Ruby grinned, Yang still looked rather glum though.

"Chin up Yang," Taiyang pushed her chin upwards, "It's not the end of the world even if they strip you off your right to attend Beacon, you can still train on your own and work as a freelancer hunter doing your own thing."

"That would unfortunately, preclude attaining the privileges a proper license brings," Winter interjected mid-conversation, "The ability to work independently within the law, the rewards gained from successful missions, access to limited hunter-only facilities, subsidised housing, tax waivers…" She counted off her fingers slowly, "All the things a professional hunter does in fact need in order to thrive."

"But we don't really need any of those right?" Ruby tried pointing out, "I mean anyone can pick up a gun and hunt Grimm anyway."

"Well those privileges _can_ be done without, but-" Taiyang tried explaining and was cut off by Winter again.

"But are much preferred to have for the ease by which it makes life…simpler in a way." Winter completed, "You won't have worry about funding in that respect." Her eyes briefly flicked over to Weiss "Well I need to make a few calls, I'll be back shortly, _don't_ get into any more trouble while I'm gone you hear?" She turned to look at Weiss.

"Yes Winter." Weiss bowed her head.

* * *

 _ **A little while later,**_

Everyone had filed back into the room, this time Ozpin noted that Nyla was once again sitting at the head of the committee, all of the committee members –including Nyla- looked more than a little dishevelled and tired, probably evidence that there had been quite the "discussion" as it would seem to their audience.

"The committee has come to a conclusion," Despite the formalness of the tone, Nyla seemed almost relieved that it was all over, "Team RWBY's judgement will be handed over to Beacon Academy and by extension to Headmaster Ozpin, he will decide the final sentence in accordance with the rules and regulations stipulated in his Academy at his own and his staff's discretion." She arranged the papers on her table.

"Although perhaps it would be prudent for the Headmaster to provide us with details of said punishment?" Whitemore was making another push.

"Councillor Whitemore…" Nyla's voice dropped in tone, it was clear she was becoming irritated, it mildly amused Ozpin in a small way considering her almost robotic disposition at times.

"Just a moment Nyla," He waved her off, "I'd like to be absolutely sure that the Headmaster does indeed perform his duties accordingly and does not simply skimp on it just because they are his students."

"Councillor Whitemore I already stated that Ozpin will perform his duties at his own discretion and-"

"It's alright Councillor." Ozpin said firmly as he stood up, "Councillor Whitemore you are indeed right, and I have already prepared a list of penalties that should be severe enough to deter the Team from ever attempting such reckless actions again."

"Oh? Why don't you enlighten us Headmaster?"

"Certainly," Ozpin cleared his throat, "Firstly, Team RWBY will be barred from leaving the Academy during their time-off until the end of the semester," He did not miss the horrified look on Yang's face, "Secondly, Team RWBY will be suspended from taking missions during this same period of time," And now Ruby's jaw had hit the floor, "Thirdly, Team RWBY will not be allowed to participate in the Vytal Festival." Weiss actually jumped that. " And lastly, Team RWBY will not be attending the annual Beacon dance." There was no reaction from Blake.

"All of these of course, will remain subjective based on how far they are willing to repent for their actions, whereupon I will personally judge whether or not they will be fit to perform any of the aforementioned duties." Ozpin explained, "I trust that all this is enough for the committee?"

There was some murmuring and talking before Whitemore answered, "These measures are enough, let's hope that Team RWBY here takes the opportunity to learn their lesson well. On the other hand, how will these measures be carried out?"

"In addition to all those, I have also delegated a separate team of trainees to watch over Team RWBY," Ozpin continued without stopping, "In the event that Team RWBY once again acts irresponsibly, then that Team will have to share in the subsequent punishment and consequences on a charge of negligence of duty."

Behind him, he knew that the resident prince-in-hiding and his team had probably just frozen themselves stiff on hearing his words, well they were really the only ones who could have the capacity to watch over their comrades-in-arms, and now they would extra motivation to do so.

"Oh?" Now Nyla looked interested herself, "And who exactly is this other team of trainees?" She asked.

"They're right here actually," Ozpin turned to look at four rather horrified looks directed at him, "Team JNPR if you would please stand and identify yourself." He nodded to them.

All four exchanged rather worried looks, but as to be expected, Jaune Arc took the lead in standing, and the rest followed. They then walked all the way to the front until they were standing right beside Ozpin, whispers and murmurs echoed throughout the room on seeing the famed champion of Mistral making her way to the front.

"Do introduce yourself young man." Nyla looked at Jaune from behind her glasses, noting that he was the same person she had almost bumped into at the end of the first hearing.

"My name is Jaune Arc, I'm the leader of Team JNPR." Nyla furrowed her brow.

"So what is the nature of your relationship with Team RWBY Mr. Arc?"

"We're friends, we met during initiation and we've ah…" He glanced over at the other Team who were wearing expectant looks on their faces, "We've stuck together since."

"Mmhmm, I see…" Nyla nodded and looked down at something on a sheet of paper, "Well you seem like a fine person, would you say that the headmaster's trust is misplaced?"

"No ma'am, my team will fulfil our duty to best of our ability." Jaune hoped he sounded confident enough.

"…Let's hope so," the way in which Nyla's voice sucked all the moisture out of the air was unnerved Jaune, "if Ozpin trusts you to be capable of watching over our errant huntresses over there," She gestured at Team RWBY, "Then I see no reason why we should not."

"Thank you councillor." Jaune was not sure what else he was supposed to say.

"Well then good luck Mr. Arc," Nyla began rearranging her papers, "I believe this has gone on for long enough now, so this hearing is hereby concluded and all participants are summarily dismissed."

Despite the harsh punishments that had just been meted out to them, it seriously looked like a great weight had been lifted off of Team RWBY's shoulders as people began slowly filing out of the room.

"Well then I guess I'll see you around," Taiyang turned to Winter and stuck his hand out, "It's been a pleasure working with you Ms. Schnee." He smiled that charming, insufferably infectious smile of his and gave a slight nod of his head

"Please, call me Winter," Winter returned his smile with one of her own, "And the pleasure is all mine Mr. Xiao Long." She said with a warm note in her voice as she grasped his hand firmly with her own.

"Well that doesn't seem very fair; you can call me Taiyang or 'Tai' for short." Taiyang nodded.

"Alright then 'Tai', I'll see you around." Winter waved as she began pulling Weiss away.

"You too Winter." Taiyang smiled and waved back as he ushered his daughters out of the room.

Blake remained with Team JNPR and Ozpin as Jaune confronted the Headmaster.

"Professor, you didn't say anything about this." Jaune seemed a little agitated.

"My apologies Mr. Arc, but I needed to give the committee as much as I could in terms of what to do with RWBY, and it occurred to me that with your far more balanced and well-mannered team, you could do well in helping to keep your friends out of trouble." Ozpin explained, "Besides it's not as if both your teams don't already stick together often, you were the most logical choice for this."

"…I guess so." There was a short pause before Jaune sighed in resignation.

"Cheer up Mr. Arc, I'm sure _you of all people_ should have little problem helping Team RWBY find ways of circumventing the various regulations that are now in place around them."

"I'm…not sure I want to do that."

"Well that's entirely up to you of course." Ozpin smirked, "I have to return to Beacon now, you can stay a while if you like, but I must be going, I'll see you all back at Beacon." With an exchange of greetings the headmaster left and disappeared.

"So lemme get this straight…" Nora held up a finger, "Now if Team RWBY gets into trouble…so will we?" She threw her arms out, "How's that even remotely fair? What'd we do to deserve this?"

"Associate with them?" Ren tried to crack a joke.

"Well then I think we should all…Blake are you alright?" Jaune had noticed the resident ninja cat Faunus seemed rather listless and completely unmindful of her surroundings, "Blake!" He called out louder,

"Huh?" Blake turned to look at the worried Jaune and brushed him off, "Yeah I'm fine," She sighed, "Where're the others?"

"We'd better go look for them." Jaune noted.

At that time, Winter had finally managed to find a private spot…on the rooftop of the parliament building where both she and Weiss could finally manage to have a long, proper conversation that they had not been able to have in a long time.

"I don't have a lot of time, so I'll get straight to the point," she said as she walked over to the railing on the rooftop and leaned over it while Weiss stood a short distance away, "So what have you learned about your semblance?"

"Lots!" Weiss said excitedly, "I've just started on my time dilation! I'm learning to use my glyphs to properly support my comrades in battle and-"

" _Support_?" Winter turned around and looked at her directly, her expression completely unreadable.

Weiss's face fell and she immediately knew what was coming with just that look of course 'Schnee lead, they don't follow', that line had been hammered into her skull more times than she could ever possibly care to count or even imagine, despite that though Winter remained silent before sighing and shaking her head.

"We'll talk about that at a more appropriate time, for now how has your summoning been coming along?" She folded her arms.

Weiss's eyes went wide and she stuttered, "I…I…You know I can't…" She trailed off uncertainly, wringing her hands bashfully.

Winter pressed the palm of one hand into her face, she technically did not have the time for this because she was supposed to be heading over to the Atlesian Military's staging area to report for duty to General Ironwood, and yet…

"Don't be so ridiculous, every generation of Schnee has had the ability to summon, what's the matter with you now?" Winter asked as she walked towards Weiss.

"I'm trying!" Weiss insisted as she tossed her hands out, "I've been trying since I came to Beacon, I…I've been trying as much as possible but all I can manage is-"

*THWACK*

The elder Schnee's knuckles came down on top of Weiss's head, "Oh stop doubting yourself already!" And then Winter _smiled_ , "At this rate perhaps you should move back home where father could give you a comfortable job as _receptionist_." The irony was palpable and it hit Weiss like a sack of bricks, silencing any protest immediately.

Winter rubbed her forehead; she really wanted the opportunity to be able to test out Weiss's skills for herself, really push and demonstrate what the heiress could do at this point compared to her own abilities, unfortunately for the both of them…she checked her watch, she really _had_ to be going now, any tardiness on her part simply would not do, not when she was a Schnee herself. She found her thoughts aimlessly drifting to the young prince who she had just seen in the hearing for a short period of time, he had carried himself well even if he had clearly been nervous about it.

"Maybe you could try and find a charming prince to marry," Winter clicked her tongue as her eyes flicked about, "that kind of connection would certainly please father if it were to be made."

Weiss looked at Winter like she had grown two heads before scoffing, " _Yeah right_ ," Weiss rolled her eyes and waved the remark off, "A prince…hah! Even if I were too, where would I find one anyway?" She folded her arms and raised an eyebrow, maintaining her focus on Winter.

 _Huh…so it looks like she doesn't know after all, or for that matter do the rest of her team…_ Winter nodded.

"Hey Weiss!" A voice called out, both Schnees turned to find Jaune Arc waving at them as he approached, "Uh, sorry I hope I'm not interrupting anything." He said awkwardly.

"Of course you were," Weiss was clearly irritated, "Is there something you need?"

And before Jaune could make a sarcastic comeback, Winter was already speaking, "Weiss there's no need to be so rude," She chided gently, she already knew who he was just by the mention of his name back then.

"Winter, this is Jaune Arc, he leads Team JNPR, and we're… _friends_ at Beacon." Weiss gestured appropriately, "Jaune this is my elder sister Winter, she's a specialist in the Atlesian Military."

"I'm so happy to think of you as a… _friend_ too Weiss." Jaune mockingly mimicked her short pause.

"We won't be for much longer if you keep that up." Weiss narrowed her eyes, although the smirk gave her joke away.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Ms. Schnee." Jaune smiled and held his hand out, to both his and Weiss's surprise, Winter did not take it immediately, instead she had taken a small step back, stroking her chin with one hand and was regarding Jaune _very_ carefully.

 _So this really is the prince?_ Winter's raised a fascinating eyebrow as she looked him over, even though he had introduced himself earlier to the committee, truthfully she had not really known what to expect if she had indeed managed to meet him, on the one hand somehow the fairy tale image of a shining prince charming in a cape, riding a tall horse and making all the ladies swoon was just too childish for her to accept, it was also completely ridiculous, if the original purpose was hiding out, then it would be completely counterproductive for him to draw attention to himself.

Which made his current look a lot more sense in any case.

She briefly glanced over to Weiss, who was looking back at her in confusion; the young heiress seemed to have established a very friendly relationship with the prince judging from their capacity to banter back and forth with ease and not a sense of animosity between the two. In fact they seemed rather comfortable in each other's presence.

Well at least he was not his eldest sister.

 _Hmm, very interesting…_ Winter stroked her chin as her eyes flicked back and forth.

"Uh…Winter?" Weiss tried.

 _I suppose our father wouldn't mind if you wanted to aim that high._ She suppressed a smirk and shook her head. _He would approve, and to my honest surprise I suppose I would approve too._ She closed her eyes and nodded her head sagely for a moment.

Jaune was beginning to feel very awkward and uneasy under the intense gaze that the elder Schnee girl was giving him, his hand still dangled freely in mid-air. Even Weiss looked rather perplexed, switching her gaze from Winter to Jaune in confusion.

And then to the surprise of the two teenagers, Winter took Jaune's hand firmly with a low bow.

"And it is my earnest pleasure to meet you too Mr. Arc." Winter smiled as she released his hand, Jaune had an incredibly perplexed look on his face as he rubbed his hand, and even Weiss was looking completely lost, Winter continued with her smile as she said, "Janice Arc sends her regards from Atlas and to tell you that she will be in Vale for the Vytal Festival."

"Janice?!" Jaune jumped on hearing his twin's name, his own mouth grew into a grin, "How do you know her? How is she doing? I haven't heard from her in a long time!" He excitedly asked before Winter put one hand up to halt him in his tracks.

"Your sister is doing just fine Mr. Arc, her work is… _astounding_ to say the least, she will definitely be capable of great things in the future," Winter nodded, "Both you and the rest of _your family_ should be proud of her." Winter smirked as Jaune's eyes went wide, clearly seeming to detect the hint in her voice.

 _Yes indeed little prince, yes indeed,_ There was a strange twinkle in Winter's eyes as she drew back.

"Well I'm afraid I must take my leave now, do you want me to pass anything on to Ms. Janice?" She lifted her eyebrows.

"Ah! Erm…well…" Jaune scratched his head and tried to come up with something, "tell her…I said hi?" He gave an awkward smile.

Winter laughed, "Of course Mr. Arc, ah but perhaps…" She took out her scroll, "I think it would be more prudent to hand you her new scroll number, that way you may talk to her whenever you wish." She nodded, and showed the number on the screen of her scroll, Jaune quickly noted the number down and with a quick confirmation, saved it to his own scroll.

"She does request that you keep in touch a bit more often and not 'drop of the face of Remnant' for excessively long periods at a time."

"Ah that's …well…you know…busy with Academy things." Jaune shrugged.

"Indeed, well then I bid you good day Mr. Arc," Winter gave a short bow again before standing back up.

"I'll see you to your limo." Weiss said, maintaining her composure even as her mind whirled at the strange interaction her elder sister had just had with one of her friends, "catch you later Jaune." She waved, Jaune waved back.

 _Well they are rather comfortable with each other._ Winter thought bemusedly, it was a weird thought in her head, the image of Weiss in a wedding dress, being all pouty as their servants got her ready, Winter helping her put on her makeup…

Winter nearly laughed out loud at the thought, and was able to reduce it to a small smirk as she walked back to her limo with Weiss in tow.

"Will you be around for the Vytal Festival?" Weiss asked as they walked.

"I honestly don't know, General Ironwood wants me to stay to help sort out something on this end, the issue with the stolen prototypes has not yet been resolved, after that I will have to see where else I'm needed." Winter shrugged.

"I…see." Weiss looked a little glum.

Winter sighed "You're participating aren't you? Wait no…" She corrected herself, "You're going to _try_ to participate aren't you?"

"I don't know, with what the Headmaster said and all, maybe it would be better for us all to just lay low and wait for all this to blow over." Weiss let her shoulders sag, "I think that was enough excitement for a long time." Winter hummed a non-response as they continued walking.

They walked in silence for a bit more, descending down the steps out of the building to the limo even as cameras flashed all around them and questions erupted from the mass of paparazzi, both sisters ignored them as they walked down, Winter nodded as one of her aides opened the door to the limo and she stepped in easily while Weiss remained outside.

"For what it's worth, it was good to see you Weiss." Winter nodded from inside the vehicle.

"You too Winter." Weiss smiled.

"Until we see each other again sister." There was a strange, sad smile on Winter's face as the door closed that Weiss did not miss, she watched as the limo drove away with a melancholic look on her face, wondering when she would get to see her elder sister again.

And then she was reminded of where she was when a particularly bright flash went off right in front of her, temporarily blinded she quickly turned away, covering her eyes and waving the flashes away in annoyance, she went back into the building to look for her team.

At the same time, Jaune had found the rest of his team together with Team RWBY –sans Weiss- talking with Taiyang, Nora looked quite excitable and was throwing a million and one questions at the professional hunter who was doing his best to answer them even as Ren struggled to rein in the hyperactive hammer maiden.

"So how many Grimm could you take on? What's it like surviving out in the wilderness for so long? Do you have any awesome moves you can show us?"

"Whoa slow down there hotshot!" Taiyang laughed, "I think…" He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "I think a hundred should be a piece of cake, it's really crappy but you get used to it, and well…you'll have to wait and see if any Grimm come along." He grinned.

"Hey Jaune, where's Weiss?" Ruby asked as her fellow leader appeared.

"She's on her way, just saw off her elder sister." Jaune nodded, "So I miss anything important?"

"Oh yeah! Dad!" Yang pepped up, "This is Jaune Arc, he's the leader of Team JNPR, we all met at the initiation when the Manticore attacked us." She explained.

 _Arc? Wait a minute…is this Jacques' kid?_ Taiyang found the situation rather amusing, here he was, his own daughters apparently the best of friends with the son of Beacon's Blademaster and leader of Team CORA.

The rivals of Team STRQ.

"It's a pleasure to meet you sir." Jaune stuck his hand out with a smile on his face, Taiyang lifted an eyebrow but returned the smile and gripped the offered hand firmly and shook it.

"Arc eh?" The man smirked, "You wouldn't happen to be related to Jacques Arc would you?" Taiyang asked, wondering how the other blonde-haired, blue-eyed man was holding up, the last time both teams had been together had been at graduation, and that had been a rather somber affair for Team CORA.

"He's my father." Jaune said simply, his expression did not change a wit when he said that.

"Ah I see, how's Jacques doing these days? It's been ages since I've seen him myself! I guess he must've gotten with that Bullhead pilot after all, so what's he doing now?" Taiyang let out a loud laugh and grinned widely.

"Uh, dad-" Ruby tried but was quickly cutoff when Jaune started speaking again.

"He's doing great!" Jaune nodded excitedly, "He's still hunting and mum is still…y'know," Jaune waved his hand, "Transporting him round and round Remnant." Team JNPR was looking at Jaune like he had grown a second head.

"Huh, I see." Taiyang stroked his chin and nodded along, "Well in that case he seems to be holding up well, when you see him do tell him that Taiyang Xiao Long sends his regards, and that I wouldn't mind meeting up with him some day for a drink if he's ever free to do so."

"I'm sure that can be arranged." Jaune nodded monotonously.

"Haha! Well that's good then." Taiyang folded his arms and laughed, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "I should go get Qrow together with him as well, I wonder if he's still hiding in the ladies' somewhere after Jacques went ape on him that one time."

"Uh, ex-excuse me sir?" Jaune stuttered a little.

"Oh nothing," Taiyang chuckled, "I'm just reliving some…interesting memories of your father and my team, you look like you're doing fairly well, and I think he would be proud of you."

"I'm sure he would be." Jaune flatly replied.

"Uh huh," Taiyang nodded before checking his watch, "Well I suppose I should be off now, take care of yourself alright?" He patted Jaune on the back.

"No problem." Jaune smiled.

"You're going already?" Ruby looked rather downcast.

"Sorry Ruby, but I'm needed back at Signal," Taiyang shrugged apologetically.

"We'll see you off," Yang said before turning to the others, "Carry on gang, we'll see you back at Beacon." They exchanged goodbyes as the family walked away.

"So…" Taiyang said slowly as he turned to his daughters after a short distance, "You gonna tell me what's up with that Arc kid?"

"Huh?" Both Ruby and Yang simultaneously turned to give their father a look of confusion.

Taiyang sighed and pushed out his lower lip, wondering if he ought to try and pursue this matter with his daughters, he had no real obligation to the boy besides him being the son of one of his friends from a long gone time. On the other hand Jaune _was_ the son of one of his friends from a long gone time, and in that respect it had fairly obvious from the start to him that Jaune had been putting on a rather nice show during the conversation.

"What do you mean dad?" Yang asked with a curious tilt of her head.

"I mean did something happen to his parents?" Taiyang folded his arms, "Jaune was struggling with something when he was talking to me, it seems like bringing up his father made him quite uncomfortable, has he ever talked about him?"

Both Ruby and Yang exchanged a glance and shook their heads, "I don't…I don't think so…" Ruby shrugged.

"Huh…is that so…" Taiyang looked rather thoughtful before he shook his head, "Well I suppose that's all there is to it then."

"Is there something wrong dad?" Yang asked.

"Well…I…" Taiyang wavered, wondering if it was his place to start basically gossiping about one of their friends, he shook his head, "No, it's not my place to talk about his father away from him, it's better if he told you himself if anything was wrong and…" He paused again, deep in thought, "yeah…that's…" His face contorted for a moment before it relaxed, "Just look out for each other and keep each other safe, Beacon's the time for you to form lifelong friendships, cherish those relationships alright?" He grinned and patted them both on their heads.

"Yep!" Ruby nodded excitedly. In her mind, she was wondering what her father had meant by those words, as far as she knew, he was a friend to Jaune's own father. It had occurred to her from the moment Taiyang had addressed Jaune as the son of one of his friends that the former might have been aware of the… _complicated_ _circumstances_ that surrounded Jaune's family, she wondered if he had himself been hinting that he knew about the House of Vale or was it…?

Or perhaps had it been _something else_ entirely that she did not know about and maybe she was just tired and overthinking things?

"Of course!" Yang grinned.

"Well that aside, I have something to pass to you, so follow me back to the hotel for a while will ya?" He gestured for them to follow him, the two sisters exchanged a questioning glance before Yang shrugged and they took off after him.

And as the curtain finally drew to a close on the Highway 42 incident, Ruby was later found carrying a rather large backpack into Beacon Academy with her elder sister, no one really questioned her on what was inside it or where she had gotten it from, and so it was that Zwei was able to get into Beacon Academy without notice.

Well…

"Keep him away from me." Blake stated firmly.

"But-"

"No buts!"

* * *

 **If this chapter –and the previous chapters- are ever marked as being really good, I don't think I'll ever be able to top them, like I think I should probably stop here and just go on permanent hiatus. I gave it my best shot so if its not up to mark than...**

 **Whelp, I guess that's the limit of my ability.**

 **And I just wanted to ask but did anyone start shipping Taiyang/Winter in the middle of this fic? Cause I just started shipping them for no reason in the middle of writing.**

 **I had a small idea for an alternate storyline wherein the White Fang actually attacked during the speech and injured the King, unfortunately I had no idea where I was going to take the story if I had gone in that direction and so I left it out.**

 **I also totally did not steal that scene from The Queen, I have no idea what you're talking about.**

 **General strategy of Winter and Taiyang? Make the hearing about anything else besides the actual point of the hearing. This is more necessity rather than anything else, as things stand Team RWBY does not have a chance otherwise, the only way they're going to get out of this is if they just deflect every single question like a "pro" (coughcough) and use logical fallacies up the wazoo (Including my personal favorite, accusing the other side of a fallacy whether or not it actually was a fallacy**

 **Aka: Fallacy fallacy (Go google it)**

 **They...don't entirely end up using it, but the principle is there.**

 **What? You think that's stupid because it's supposed to be a professional hearing between reasonable adults? Have you seen real life politicians in debates?**

 **If the entire scene feels very disjointed, that's because it is, I tossed out every idea I head first and then made it a business trying to reconnect all of the points into something barely coherent as it is.**

 ***Shrug* it's the best I could do.**

 **I've always had this theory in my head that children are actually far more logical than adults, and that's because they haven't yet been exposed to the cynical fallacies that enable adults to win arguments by conjuring stupid arguments out of nowhere whereas children can only fall silent and maybe cry once you really destroy their argument. I know this because the earth revolves around the sun and the moon revolves around the earth therefore aliens exist and therefore I am correct.**

 **One last thing, I know I said in the previous chapter that I had an omake planned, basically all the various alternate ideas that I had for taking this, unfortunately this one chapter is a little too bloated so I might push it into subsequent chapters instead.**

 **All your reviews, faves and follows are appreciated!**


	28. Dance Dance Revelation

**Phew! Finally the story is beginning to move again, I actually feel a bit better about that, admittedly the whole hearing thing might have dragged on for a little longer than I expected.**

 **Even so, this chapter covers the entirety of three episodes until the Dance episode, I did this because I felt putting it all into one chapter would make it more contiguous, hopefully it flowed a bit better, I didn't want to have to split it into more chapters than was necessary.**

 **In a way, you can think of this chapter as a summary of the status of all the current relationships Jaune has with the others to an extent.**

 **Do enjoy!**

* * *

"BEGIN!" The voice of Professor Glynda Goodwitch echoed out over the arena.

Jaune's eyes snapped open and he realized he had somehow fallen asleep sitting up straight in the arena stands; he shook his head to clear out the strange voices and thoughts swirling around in his brain and did his best to focus on the upcoming match.

Pyrrha Nikos vs. Team CRDL

As in the whole of Team CRDL

Despite the odds, he doubted if that team would end up proving to be much trouble for the four-time Mistralian Champion.

He was right, at no point during the fight did Pyrrrha ever seem to have trouble controlling the ebb and flow of the battle, easily countering and fighting off attacks from all four members of the team and knocking them down one by one until finally…

"And that's the match." Professor Glynda Goodwitch flatly noted as Cardin Winchester collapsed to the ground in pain.

"Very well done, Ms. Nikos, I don't think you'll have a problem qualifying for the tournament." The professor nodded and gave a thin smile on her lips.

"Thank you professor." Pyrrha bowed graciously.

Jaune smirked, "That's Pyrrha for you," He mumbled to himself.

"Ok…" Glynda said as she tapped her scroll, "I know that was a tough act to follow, but it seems that there is time for one more match before we end class." She looked around the room, and spied Team RWBY sitting right in front of Team JN(P)R. The other professors and her had agreed to give RWBY a few days off after the drama of a few weeks ago, but now it was time to start easing them back into the regular schedule of classes and schoolwork.

Meaning of course…

"Do we have any volunteers; perhaps one of Team RWBY would like to _reinitiate_ themselves into our class." Glynda barely smirked as she watched them glance at each other worriedly.

"I'll do it." One student, apparently not from Beacon raised his hand, attention in the room shifted to him

"Mercury, is it?" Glynda nodded, "Well, let's find you an opponent."

"Actually," Mercury pointed at Pyrrha who was still standing in the arena, "I'd like to fight her." He stated firmly, Pyrrha eyes widened in surprise, and her own team temporarily diverted their attention off of her to look at the newcomer.

 _Wow, he's got guts._ Jaune raised both of his eyebrows as the challenger entered the arena and both he and Pyrrha began visibly sizing up the other.

Beside him, Nora was watching Team RWBY –who was seated just in front of them- like a hawk, burning holes into the backs of their heads from behind. It had only been a scant week after that the end of the hearing, but after Professor Ozpin had decided to appoint them to watch over the errant team of trainee huntresses –with the explicit threat of sharing their fate if they got out of hand again-, Nora had taken to watching their every move with her head tilted down, staring at them from beneath her eyebrows. Team RWBY was fidgeting nervously under her watch and trying their best to keep their attention focused firmly on the match in front of them.

The match began in earnest, both sides trading blows with each other, keeping pace with each other easily, countering and attacking carefully and guarding themselves. Finally Pyrrha charged at Mercury and…

"I forfeit." Pyrrha nearly fell to the floor as she tried to stop herself, whispering erupted around the room as she did so and Mercury began walking away.

"You... don't even want to try?" She seemed completely stunned and more than a little disappointed by the result.

Mercury merely shrugged in response, "What's the point? You're a world-renowned fighter. We're obviously leagues apart; I don't think I could ever match up to you."

Glynda sighed and tapped something on her scroll, "Well in that case...once again Pyrrha Nikos is the victor of the match..." The way she said, it was as if the outcome had never been in doubt for a moment, "Next time you might want to think a little harder before choosing an opponent." She chided Mercury.

Mercury looked completely nonchalant about the whole thing, "I'll be sure to do that." He replied just as an alarm sounded out

"That is all for today. Do remember, the dance is this weekend. But you all will still be going on your first mission on Monday. I will not accept any excuses for a lack of ability to perform." Glynda stated firmly, "You're all dismissed; Teams RWBY and JNPR please see me now."

As everyone else filed out of the room slowly, both teams went forward to face the Professor as she gathered up her own things.

"So how are the preparations for the dance coming along?" She asked.

"It's coming along great!" Weiss answered quickly, "I was able to get back in touch with the same people who supplied us for the breakfast stall, and I've made the orders for extra material so things are going along swimmingly!" She nodded, "And Yang…?" She looked at the blonde.

"I'm still planning out all the events as well as coming up with the appropriate music, but I'll have it done soon and it should be fine." Yang nodded along with a smile.

"Hmm, I see, well I suppose I have nothing to worry about then."

"Don't worry professor," Weiss folded her arms, "You can definitely count on us."

"Well I _hope so_ Ms. Schnee," And then Glynda turned to look at Jaune, "After all, when Team CFVY turned out to be unable to make it back in time and we started looking for replacements among the other students, it _was_ Mr. Arc's suggestion that you be placed in charge in order to…" She narrowed her eyes, " _Makeup_ for your _transgressions_ the week prior as a form of _community service_ as he put it so succinctly."

Jaune could only give an embarrassed smile while the rest of Team RWBY swallowed hard.

So a word of advice to you Ms. Schnee and Ms. Xiao Long?" She leaned in close, " _Try_ not to screw this one up, it might reflect badly on your end of year performance review." There was just a hint of bemusement in the professor's voice, "That's all I have to say, dismissed." She waved her hand

As both teams walked out of the arena, they found Sun, Neptune and two other figures waiting for them just outside the room.

"Hey gang, what's up?" Sun walked up to them with a smile.

"Wow, haven't seen you in a while." Jaune held out his fist and Sun promptly bumped it.

"This is the rest of my team," The monkey faunus gestured to a redhead and a greenhead standing just behind him, "That's Scarlet David," Scarlet gave a small bow as Sun gestured to him, "And that's Sage Ayana." Sage waved in response.

Introductions were fully exchanged between all three teams.

"So where're you guys going now?" Sun asked.

"Back to our dorms, class is over anyway." Yang shrugged.

"Yeah ok, so I know that you're all technically banned from the dance." Sun waved his hands over Team RWBY, "So I was wondering if dance night you all wanna just go out and do something fun, like screw the dance, it sounds pretty lame anyway." Sun rolled his eyes and grinned.

"Sorry Sunny D.," Yang shrugged, "But we're involved in actually planning the dance, so even if we're not going we kinda-sorta have to be there to make sure everything goes smoothly."

"Aw…" Sun groaned and then suddenly perked up, "Well in that case," He cleared his throat and then suddenly walked over to Blake, who stiffened a little at his sudden intrusion, "How about it Blake? You wanna go with me?"

Blake blinked once…twice…

"I'm banned from going." Her voice was completely dry and devoid of emotion.

"So? Yang said you all have to be there anyway to oversee the dance right?" Sun threw his arms out, "We can just hang out together…y'know that sorta thing?" He tried again with one raised eyebrow.

"Sorry Sun I think I'll just…crash in my dorm or something for the night," Blake shook her head and began walking off.

"Hey! Wait! Blake!" Sun let his body drop as he watched the ninja cat Faunus walk away in a sullen silence.

"One day pal, one day…" The prince-in-hiding smiled as he patted his unofficial protector on the back with a reassuring look, Sun shot him a disbelieving look.

"Yeah Sunny D.," Yang piped up as well, "Let me go talk to her for a bit, see if I can drag her out with us."

"Thanks Yang, but you don't have to-"

"Nonsense," Yang cut him off sharply with a raised finger, "She deserves to have some proper downtime with someone, and I'll definitely make sure of it, just you wait." She beat her fist against her chest.

"Wow that's…" Sun stood up a little straighter, "Thanks a lot Yang."

"Not a problem Sunny D.," Yang winked slyly as both teams began the walk back to their dorm rooms.

They found Blake back in their dorm room lying on her back with one of her books wide open.

"Blake," Yang sat beside her, "You really need to ease up."

Blake let out a monstrously loud sigh and growled, "What's the point anyway?"

"Uh, what?"

"Look at us!" She sat up straight and gestured to everyone in the room, "People's _lives_ are at stake out there! We're supposed to be _helping_ them!" She sounded utterly indignant, and then her expression turned solemn and she lay back down in her bed slowly "And yet all we managed to do was wreck a few people's lives and have the Headmaster put himself on the line for us, and in the end all that happened was that we got barred from being able to do anything at all."

"Don't say that Blake!" Ruby tried to be comforting, "Thanks to both you and Sun, we now know that they're operating somewhere southeast of Vale." She pointed out.

"Not only that, but we also found out that the Schnee company records singled out Vale as the primary target for Dust robberies over the last few months." Weiss nodded along with her partner.

"Don't forget about their missing military tech too." Yang grinned and folded their arms, they all exchanged smiles and nods, all clear in their understanding of the situation. Blake narrowed her eyes and shot all of them a look that said 'really guys, really?', and then all of the smiles fell off their faces with a loud groans all around.

"So what're we going to do now?" Ruby muttered as she walked over to her bed.

"It'd be nice if we could do _something_ about it." Weiss rubbed her forehead gently and sat down on the floor as Ruby fell face first into her bed and remained there, "But I don't think we're going anywhere with Nora looking at us like that."

"Maybe we ought to tell someone." Yang suggested as she sat down with her back against the bedpost of Blake's bed, "Even if we can't do much about it, I'm sure we can someone else to do it on our behalf.

"Tell who though?" Weiss asked pointedly, "I don't think that…" And then her eyes lit up with a sudden realization and she pumped her fist into an open palm.

Yang tilted her head at the move, "You have an idea?"

"Of course!" Weiss stood up straight, "General Ironwood and my sister!" She nodded excitedly, "We can tell them! I'm _sure_ they'll do something about it!"

"Can we trust them though?"

"Definitely." Weiss appeared completely dead-set on their next course of action, "General Ironwood is the Headmaster of Atlas Academy and my sister is a specialist with the Atlesian Military, if there is anyone who could do something it would be them!"

"In that case why don't we just tell Professor Ozpin though?" Yang looked rather curious, "I'm sure it'd be better that way."

"Ok, why don't we tell the _both_ of them?" Weiss leaned forward, "They're the headmasters! I'm sure they can do things that we ourselves would not otherwise be capable of in the state that we are in now."

"Good idea, what do you say Rubes?" Yang looked at her little sister and leader for approval, Ruby groaned in response and turned her head to look at Yang with dour expression on her face.

"Man we were totally meant to be the heroes, how on Remnant did it end up this way?" She whined and rolled onto her back, scratching her head.

"Well…I guess you can't have everything huh?" Yang merely shrugged, "The least we can do now is to get someone else to do it for us since we're all stuck here."

"Yeah we should," Ruby admitted. In truth, she had an idea at the back of her head, that idea being that perhaps she could tell Jaune and get him and his team to act in her place, but that entailed getting Jaune involved in their affairs, plus there was the whole issue of him being the prince and her nearly spitting it out and…

 _Oh god, he probably secretly hates me or something._ She thought to himself, Blake had already given her a rather harsh tongue lashing on that part.

* * *

 _ **A few weeks ago, aftermath of the hearing,**_

 _ **Beacon Academy,**_

Team RWBY were finally heading back to their dorm for a long awaited rest, the fact that they had been sentenced pretty hard was hanging on at the back of their minds, but for the moment the only thing they could thin k about was the need to hit the shower, than the bed, and finally dreamland.

As Ruby let out a loud and very harsh yawn –Weiss could not find the energy to chide her for not covering her mouth- a hand was laid on her shoulder, holding her back from walking any further, she glanced behind her and found Blake boring holes into her.

"Keep going you two," Blake waved them on, "I need to talk to Ruby in private for a while." Ruby gulped as Yang lifted a questioning eyebrow.

"And what exactly is that about?" Yang asked with a tired voice.

"It's important private stuff, just go back to the dorm first and we'll see you there." Ruby replied with a sweat drop, Blake expected to have to force the issue a little knowing how overprotective Yang was where her little sister was concerned, but to her surprise Yang and Weiss merely nodded and continued walking with Yang still holding onto Zwei, both evidently too exhausted from the recent experiences to be able to ponder overly well any hidden meaning Blake might have meant in her words.

With that done Blake led Ruby to a quiet corner somewhere else before turning around and glaring at her sharply, Ruby squeaked and lowered her face, somehow knowing exactly what was coming.

"Ruby that was _way_ too close back there." Blake narrowed her eyes.

"I know, I know, I was just…" Ruby looked up and bunched up her shoulders, "It was exciting you know? I thought Jaune like…he just pulled out all the stops to get someone to break us out of there and…"

"And you nearly slipped and gave him away." Blake sighed and rubbed her forehead, "What on Remnant were you going to say anyway?" She lifted one eyebrow.

"…I was gonna say 'you didn't say your family was gonna come help us.'…or something along those lines anyway." Ruby pushed out her lower lip in embarrassment.

"…Wow…" Blake deadpanned after a moment's pause.

"Yeah…" Ruby noted with an awkward smile on her face.

Blake sighed again before remarking, "look here, you have to take this seriously, Jaune is counting on us to be able to help him out when he needs it, and his identity needs to remain a secret between the two of us and Sun alright."

"Yeah sure," Ruby waved her off, "I mean it's not like you weren't the one who wanted to go investigate the White Fang anyway…" She mumbled beneath her breath, unfortunately forgetting that Blake was a Faunus with advanced senses.

"Excuse me?" Blake ground her teeth, "You were the one who was so enthusiastic about the whole thing! What happened to 'who here wants to be the youngest huntresses ever to take down a criminal organization?' or did you already forget about that part?"

"Uh hello?" Ruby cupped one hand to her ear, "Who was the one who so flippantly said that pre-emptive action was the best way to force their hand, prevent any future incident from occurring, thus acting firmly in his highness's best interests'?" Ruby folded her arms and shot right back in Blake's face.

An eyebrow twitched, Blake ground her teeth and put her hands on her hips, "Well hey, don't let that stop you from wanting to play the hero next time."

They paused and took a breather, both breathing like a pair of boxers who had just thrown their first few blows at each other and were just getting ready for a second bout of punching each other in the face, both trying to stare the other down and prove a point. And then something happened, something snapped in the both of them, and they simultaneously broke out into giggles.

"You should've seen the look on your face!" Ruby smiled widely, "You were all like 'DOOOOOMMM'." Ruby imitated Blake's wide-eyed look while the person in question stifled her laughter.

"And you were looking all…" Blake puffed up her cheeks and scrunched up her face, making Ruby break out into more giggles before they both calmed down.

"I guess we all kinda screwed the pooch on this one huh?"

"Yeah I guess we did," And then Blake remembered something, "In hindsight, if something had happened to Jaune, I think we'd all be in the ringer for it." She let her shoulders drop down, "By the way, Ruby?"

"Yeah?"

"Keep your dog far away from me."

"Eh? What? I promise Zwei is really nice and-"

"I don't care, just keep him away from me."

* * *

 _ **Team JNPR's dorm,**_

On the opposite side of the hallway, Team JNPR settled themselves down to rest, although Pyrrha kept making furtive glances at Jaune as he lay down on his bed and started perusing through his scroll. This did not go unnoticed by Ren and Nora. It was obvious for the longest time to the both of them that the champion had held feelings for Jaune that went rather far beyond simple friendship or companionship, the problem was that she was by far and wide too shy and too nervous to try and confess, add to that the fact that Jaune was apparently completely oblivious to her affections…

Jaune remained where he lay, scrolling through something random on his scroll, Pyrrha sat at her desk and tried to concentrate on studying, though her thoughts invariably continued to drift back towards her leader.

 _If only there was something I could do, if only I could tell him outright…_ She sighed blithely and tried to focus on the weak points of a Nevermore, they were going to go on missions soon and anything could happen so she did not want to get caught off guard. She was surprised when she felt something hit the back of her head.

She spun around to find Nora staring right at her, the hammer maiden's head flicked a few times in the direction of Jaune, and then she stretched one hand out to her side, and placed one arm curled in front of her and started swaying left and right.

 _Dancing? Oh the dance!_ Pyrrha's eyes widened in realization and she shot a look at her idling leader, _I could ask him to the dance! But…wouldn't it be better for him to ask me first?_ She looked back at Nora, who had one eyebrow raised with her hands outstretched in front of her, as if to say 'Come on! What are you waiting for?!'.

Meanwhile, Jaune remained blissfully unaware of the silent communication between the two female members of his team.

Pyrrha eyes flicked back to Jaune again.

 _Should I? Its fine isn't it? I should have all the time in the world right?_ Pyrrha looked back at Nora, who had folded her arms and was glaring at her with narrowed eyes, Pyrrha uttered a little squeak in response.

 _Right, if I have all the time, then I should start early yes?_ She nodded and sucked in a lungful of air and exhaled in to try and calm herself before she turned to face Jaune with the best smile she could put on her face.

"So…Jaune…?" Pyrrha started slowly.

"Yeah…?" He kept his eyes glued to the screen, only a brief glance in her direction to show he was paying attention.

"Are you going to…err…I mean do you…?" Of all the times for her nerves to fail her, Pyrrha Nikos, four-time champion of the Mistralian tournament, was struggling to ask the boy of her dreams out to a dance. She was stuttering incoherently and she could feel sweat beginning to gather on her palms and brow as she tried to force out her confession.

Behind her, Nora sighed and facepalmed as Ren chose to ignore the entire situation in order to rest his eyes.

"Am I…?" Jaune looked at her out the corner of his eye with one eyebrow raised as he continued to hold his scroll up in the air.

"So are you planning on-" She was cut off when Jaune's scroll started ringing fiercely.

"Sorry just give me a moment." The caller was identified as none other than the Armorican smith Vulcan.

"Hello? Vulcan?" He answered it.

"Jaune-y boy!" She greeted enthusiastically, "How've you been doing?"

"I'm doing fine I guess, what's up?" It was a flat lie, the resident prince-in-hiding was still trying to shake off the meeting he had had with his maternal grandfather the His Majesty the King of Vale.

"Just called to tell you that I've got a surprise waiting for you down in the armory, a little something I've been working on the past few months, uh… _after_ you started breaking every loser-idiot's weapons with that fancy sword of yours, I get _extremely_ tired of all that bullshit, so I came up with a way for you to practice _without_ giving me more work every day." She rattled off.

"Did you manage to re-forge my sheath?" Jaune asked, it had been months since his blade-sheath had been shattered while fighting Roman Torchwick, granting him access to Crocea Mors' new longsword and kite shield, since then he had more or less left a long line of destroyed weapons in his wake.

"Just get down here and see for yourself already."

* * *

 _ **A little later,**_

"It's a sword." Jaune stated flatly.

"Yes it is."

"…You built up my anticipation so you could give me a sword." Jaune continued staring at the rather unremarkable looking thing that Vulcan was holding onto.

"Yes, so that you can stop giving me more work all the time, I forged a brand new longsword with what little time I could spare, I made as close to the specs of the standard issue Legion longsword so even if it feels a little off compared to your fancy sword, you shouldn't have a problem with it." Vulcan nodded proudly as Jaune gingerly took the sword in hand; there really was not anything to say about it, it had a long, gleaming, silvery blade, a well-polished guard with a tapped grip and a pommel at the end.

Very ordinary looking compared to the myriad of transforming guns and blades used by the majority of hunters.

"Well go on then," Vulcan pointedly shooed him over to a set of rolled up newspapers standing on end, "Try it out."

Jaune shot her a skeptical look, she was right, the sword felt nothing like Crocea Mors, which had always felt bound to him and accurate in every blow and strike he aimed to make, it genuinely felt like it was a part of him in every sense of the word, like a whole other limb, on the other hand this was just…

It felt like a decently sharp iron bar in his hands.

Regardless, his instincts kicked in from training, aiming diagonally upwards, giving a few practice swings, he swung the blade accordingly. The blade cleaved right through the thick, rolled up newspaper effortlessly, and half of it fell off easily.

"So how is it?" Vulcan asked.

"Not bad I guess-"

"Not even good?" Vulcan leaned forward with a terrifying gleam in her eye as Jaune shrank and swallowed nervously, "Not good, not great, not excellent…it's just _not bad_?" The last two words were laced with the kind of highly potent, toxic venom that could kill a person in mere minutes.

"It's _excellent_ ," Jaune was visibly shaking, "You clearly put a lot of work into it and I sincerely appreciate it, thank you very much Ms. Vulcan."

 _And please don't kill me._ Was the unspoken phrase.

" _Much better._ " Vulcan moved back and smiled while Jaune let out a sigh of relief, "By the way, did you get to go down and see the King?" She asked.

"Yeah, I saw the little parade thing that there was, don't worry I don't think you really missed much." Jaune waved his hand airily.

"I didn't think so; old fart looks like he could die at any moment to be honest." Vulcan shrugged, "Well enjoy your new sword, I've gotta get back to work, this one idiot's got this spear-rifle thing that's just driving me up a wall."

Later that night, Jaune had the opportunity to test out his new sword in another sparring match with his partner, this time he was confident that they could get more than a few blows in on each other without her needing to retire her weapon before it shattered in her hands. Pyrrha had been surprisingly enthusiastic; even more so than usual, although Jaune brushed it off as her finally being able to have a proper practice session with him for once.

"So how does it feel?" Pyrrha asked after a few bouts.

Jaune shook his head, "Not quite right, it just doesn't feel as good as Crocea Mors did." He swung it a few times aimlessly and sighed, "But I guess it'll have to do, I'll use it normally for now, and keep Crocea Mors back for the more important stuff, missions and things like that."

Pyrrha nodded and then surprisingly looked away, this one did not go unnoticed by Jaune.

"You alright?" Jaune asked as he sheathed his sword, "Wanna take a break?" He suggested.

"It's nothing!" Pyrrha suddenly snapped back, "I mean…Jauneareyouplanningontakinganyonetothedance?" She rattled off out of the blue, startling Jaune who took a step back.

"Sorry Pyrrha…am I what again?" He raised one eyebrow.

Pyrrha fought to calm herself down and bite back her rising nerves that were gnawing away at her capacity to speak normally, "I said…are you planning on taking anyone to the dance?" She forced out slowly and painfully.

"Huh? Oh!" Jaune eyes went wide in realization, "That's…right…the dance…erm…" He scratched his head awkwardly and looked at her sheepishly, "…no I guess?" He shook his head and laughed, "I was…well I was planning on just showing my face for a few minutes, maybe hang around a bit to make sure Team RWBY doesn't do anything stupid in the course of it, see if they need any help, stuff like that." He looked up and appeared to be deep in thought, "After that I was thinking I would just go back to the dorm and laze around until curfew or something hit."

"Oh…I see." Try as she might Pyrrha could not keep the dejected look from appearing on her face.

Jaune lifted an eyebrow; he walked over to her and put a comforting hand on her shoulder, she looked up at him in surprise, "Look here, don't let me get you down, if you find a nice person to go with, don't wait for me, just go and enjoy yourself for the night. Forget homework and studying and projects, just kickback and relax ok?" He tried to comfort her as best as he could, Pyrrha did her best to smile for him, which he took as a good sign.

"Alright, with that done, I suppose we ought to continue, you ready?" He backed away and held his sword up, Pyrrha did the same.

* * *

 _ **The next day,**_

The next day found Jaune in the library catching up on some of the reading that he had missed out on in all of the excitement and hullabaloo that had made up Team RWBY's hearing for the Highway 42 incident, for the moment, he had left Ren and Nora to watch over their preparations while he got some time to himself. He was calmly flicking through another page at a long table when a figure plopped herself down right in front of him on the opposite side of the table, he lowered the book to take a look and found himself looking at the ninja cat Faunus.

One of his unofficial Royal Protectors.

She seemed to sigh as she broke out one of her own books and commenced reading through it.

An awkward silence descended on them.

"So…" Jaune tried to start a conversation, "How are the preparations coming along?"

"Good." Blake answered without looking up; Jaune could tell where this was going but tried his luck anyway.

"Did Weiss make up her mind about the tablecloth yet?"

"Not yet."

"Does Yang still want a fog machine?"

"Probably."

"Any plans for the dance? Y'know since you're still supposed to be there and all."

"No."

"Not going with Sun?"

"No."

 _This isn't going anywhere…_ Jaune sighed internally and tried again.

"What's the matter with you Blake?"

"What do you mean?" Even when directly being prodded, Blake kept a completely deadpan demeanor.

"I know you're the type to go solo, try to do things on your own sort of person. But I think this is a _little_ excessive." Jaune dropped his book on the table; Blake kept hers up and did not even lift her eyes to look at Jaune.

"I have _no_ idea what you're talking about." Now Blake was getting defensive, Jaune rolled his eyes as he did the one thing he knew was sure to draw a reaction from her as he watched the bow on top of her head twitch. He reached over with one hand aimed right for her bow, predictably and with lightning speed; Blake batted the intrusion away and glared directly at Jaune.

"Didn't I tell you not to go touching me so freely like that?" She hissed out.

"Great, now that I've managed to get more than one-word answers and _complete dryness_ out of you, maybe we can start on what's wrong?" Jaune put his hands together and _dared_ to smile at the angry cat like nothing was wrong.

One of Blake's eyebrows twitched, but she seemed to finally deflate under pressure as she folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. "Oh fine," She looked away, "I'll tell you what's wrong," and her head flicked back, "The White Fang and Roman Torchwick are out there planning something big, I want to find a way to put a stop to it, and yet for all my effort, all I've managed to do is get my team stuck and in no position at all to do anything about it."

Jaune shrugged, "Maybe you should give the proper authorities a chance? None of you turned out to be really cut out for this." He received another glare for his words.

"So what then?" Blake asked pointedly, "We sit around while Roman Torchwick is free to run around unchecked with whatever he plans to do?"

Jaune went quiet for a moment and seemed to think about Blake's words, Blake expected another sharp rebuke but was surprised when the prince settled down and seemed to give up with a sigh of resignation, "Professor Goodwitch, Headmaster Ozpin and the councilors have probably already given you enough crap for it already, so I won't give you another lecture that won't work." He returned to his book, Blake herself settled back down into her chair.

And then a thought occurred to her, "Jaune, look I…" Blake sucked in both of her lips, "I told Ruby off for nearly revealing your identity, it won't happen again." She said firmly.

Jaune looked surprised but seemed rather dismissive, "I…yeah that's…you didn't need to…" He breathed in sharply and exhaled, "its fine, I mean the whole Protector thing was only to cover your asses and mine for the whole docks thing anyway." He shot her a small smile, "it's not like I need you guys to be watching over me twenty-four hours a day seven days a week do I?"

"Well technically…" Blake rocked her head, "It would constitute abandoning of one's post right? That's a pretty serious offence."

"Blake, look I…" Jaune struggled to say what he wanted to say, "None of you three have to feel duty-bound or obligated to help me or anything ok?"

"Even _if_ you _are_ important and a potential target?" Blake asked with a raised eyebrow, "Jaune…one of the reasons I wanted to do this…was for you actually." She looked away and missed the astonished look on his face; before he could interrupt she continued talking, "I wanted to make sure that after what Penny did…I wanted to be sure that nothing was going to happen to you."

Jaune kept quiet.

"That night when you told us about the attack on Armorica and your sister, and the suffering that the White Fang caused you and your people…when I saw the pain on your face, the suffering that you must've had to endure…I resolved that I had to do something about it," Blake leaned forward and over the table, clasping her hands in front of her and looking down at them as she fidgeted, and then she looked up to see Jaune with an unreadable expression on his face, "I had to _atone_ for…for all the things that I'd done, that I'd been a willing party to during my time with them." She paused and silence descended on them for a moment.

"I didn't want anyone else to ever look the way you did again." She finally admitted.

Jaune remained quiet for a moment, "And the casualties during the Highway 42 incident? What about them?" Despite the barbed nature of the question, Jaune's voice was level and even, as if he was genuinely curious as to what she thought of it.

"…Ironic isn't it?" Blake slumped in her seat, "I wanted someone in front of me to not have to cry again and instead all I managed to do was to make _more_ people cry." She lowered her shoulders as they lapsed into silence.

"Somedays…I dunno…do you ever feel like everything you try to do always ends up being completely futile?" She asked.

Jaune shifted uncomfortably in his seat, looking away from Blake bashfully, "Blake…just…look whatever happens next," Jaune seemed to bite his lip and kept from meeting her eyes, "Just…don't be too hard on yourself alright? You've got friends here with you too." He managed a weak, thin smile on his face.

Blake was about to say something else when she suddenly noticed a bright red dot on the table, she raised one eyebrow as the red dot proceeded to run in circles in front of her, Jaune noticed it too and smirked.

"I think you'd better answer that call kitty cat." He stifled a laugh as Blake scowled in his direction, Jaune watched as she got out of her seat and walked away until she seemingly bumped into another blonde behind a bookshelf, Blake suddenly disappeared behind the shelf and Yang took her place, the blonde brawler waved at Jaune and shot him a sly wink before she too disappeared.

 _Looks like Yang has things well under control._ He smiled and returned to his book.

When he was done reading he headed back to his dorm, the dance would be starting in the evening, which gave him plenty of time to prepare his suit and dress up to the nines in order to…well not really do much in any case. Contrary to popular opinion, the Royal Family did not spend all of its time on such trite silliness, who would attend such a function anyway? There would only be themselves plus maybe the servants and the protectors, but other than that…

When Jaune entered his dorm, Ren was just coming out of the shower while Nora was on her bed listening to music.

"So how'd the final preparations go?" He asked as he sat down at his desk.

"Pretty good, we left them to wrap it up." Ren nodded as he sat on his bed and finished toweling his hair dry.

"I assume you're both going to the dance?" Jaune asked.

"Yep!" Nora nodded, "Gotta keep watch, and make sure they don't do anything that could get _us_ in trouble, maybe get some dancing in while we're at it? Who knows?" She shrugged, "What about you leader? You taking anyone in particular?"

Shaking his head, Jaune laughed and said, "Nope, probably just gonna show my face and disappear, you two have fun while you're there." He turned to his desk and proceeded to start looking through his scroll.

Both Ren and Nora exchanged a worried look.

"You're not going with anyone leader?" Nora narrowed her eyes as Jaune pulled up his music list and his earphones.

"Nope." He answered finally and leaned back to let the music flow through his brain and wash out his thoughts clean.

It was round about this moment that Pyrrha chose to enter the dorm as well; Nora immediately shot her a rather dark look that stopped the champion in her tracks in the doorway. Pyrrha looked completely confused and stood stock still as Nora jumped off of her bed.

"I'll just be a moment Renny." So saying she grabbed Pyrrha by the arm and dragged her out of the door, slamming it shut behind her as she did, the noise was enough to jolt Jaune and he pulled the earphones out.

"Did something happen?" He asked as Ren gave him a resigned look.

 _This doesn't look good._ Ren internally winced.

* * *

 _ **Outside Team JNPR's dorm,**_

Nora spun Pyrrha around so that the champion's back was against the wall and faced her with a glare, Pyrrha trembled a little internally.

"So what's going on now?" The hammer maiden demanded.

"W-what do you mean? I...I was just-" Pyrrha stuttered.

"How come Jaune doesn't yet have a date to the dance?" Nora folded her arms, even though Pyrrha stood far taller than she did, the smaller girl was not backing down an inch.

"Well…that's because he didn't ask me to the dance…" Pyrrha cast her eyes downward as Nora tilted her head quizzically.

" _That's because he didn't ask me to the dance._ " Nora imitated rather poorly as she rocked her head from side to side, "You know I don't get you, I really don't get you at all."

"What?" Now Pyrrha was getting angry, "I just said-"

"Jaune _hasn't_ anyone asked anyone to the dance," Nora threw out one open palm, "And there is _no one_ asking Jaune to the dance." She threw out the other palm, "So what's the big problem here? Just _ask_ him to the dance! What're you so afraid of?"

"I don't know if he feels the same way!" Pyrrha finally blurted out, "Every time we're together, it's just…I try to hint to him, try to show him that I…that I want _to be_ with him," It seemed like an enormous effort on her part just trying to admit it, "He just brushes it off like it's nothing!" She threw her own arms out in exasperation, "Besides I still have time, I-"

" _Yes Pyrrha_ ," Nora interrupted, "I'm honestly sure that you have _all_ _the time in the world_ …up until Jaune decides that he likes _someone else_ of course." Nora blithely remarked. The sarcasm hurt, it really hurt Pyrrha, what was worse was that she knew that Nora was right, it was too much for her to hope that the state of things would remain as they were, who knew who else down the road would be available for Jaune to choose, and that was not even counting the four other members of Team RWBY. Technically speaking, although none of them had shown any hint of romantic feelings for him, that still did not mean it was impossible. The whole 'four years' thing applied to them as well.

"I just…I don't know what to do." Pyrrha sighed, "I always thought that it should be the male who makes the first move so…" She trailed off, not knowing what else to say.

"So your grand solution to this problem is to suffer in silence…" Nora was clearly not amused at all, "Shit." She swore, making Pyrrha's face go a little red, "You two are not going to get anywhere at all at this rate."

* * *

 _ **Dance time,**_

Yang Xiao Long was quite pissed.

It was not because there was anything wrong at all with her and Weiss's handiwork, in fact as colourful streamers hung from chandeliers, multiple balloons had been tied up all around the room, and all the flower vases had been strategically placed on various tables. She had to say that she had done a pretty good job, the problem was that she could only watch as Male students in dark suits joined hands together with female students in brightly coloured dresses, dancing slowly to the beat of the music playing through the room.

She ought to have been there on the floor with them.

In a nice dress…

Flaunting her assets and turning heads.

But no, instead here she was, forced to preside over a dance that she technically was not supposed to even be a part of. She was not sure if she ought to thank Jaune for finding a way for her to still be allowed to attend the dance, or if she should strangle him to death for torturing her by finding a way for her to still be allowed to attend the dance even if she was not technically allowed to.

 _Maybe it would've been better if I just hadn't bothered at all._ She dearly wanted to make up for her outburst and free Team RWBY up so that they could start going out again and going on their mission, she had really given it her all, and so now she could only hope that the Headmaster would at least allow her back into Vale. At least if she could not have the dance, give her the opportunity to enjoy herself for god's sake!

Beacon was just boring during downtime.

Still, it was not so bad she thought, at least she was here, since none of them had to go, she was sure Ruby was probably playing games again in their dorm, and Team JNPR would probably all be arriving in their nice suits and fancy dresses and there would be Jaune and Pyrrha followed by Ren and Nora and…

And it just made her so jealous, jealous that they were going to enjoy the fruits of her labor and…

 _Stop that._ She shook her head, she really needed to thank Jaune for that opportunity anyway, and she swore that guy was some kind of teacher's pet to have been able to convince _Glynda Goodwitch_ to allow _them_ to organize the dance in the first place. She also had to thank him for apparently softening up her partner enough that she was finally able to get through her Blake's skull.

She sighed as she watched more students file into the room with their partners, since Ruby was not interested and Weiss was somewhere else on the other side of the room and Blake was probably sometime away, maybe she could get away with-

"Hey Yang," Ruby said as she moved to stand beside her sister, Yang jumped in surprise.

"Ruby?" She was stunned, "What're you doing here? I thought you didn't want to come to the dance?"

"I didn't," Ruby flatly replied, "But…since you're here, and Weiss is here, and Blake just said that she was going with Sun because she wasn't spending any time more with Zwei I…" Ruby shrugged, "I guess as a leader I…I didn't want my entire team doing something without me."

"Aw!" Yang immediately threw her arms around her little sister who started struggling against her grip, "Looks like you're finally starting to try to socialize you little miscreant." Ruby dropped down and out of the grip and brushed herself off.

"Sup' gang." Sun walked up to them with Blake at his side, both they and Ruby were dressed normally.

"Hey! You made it!" She grinned and bumped fists with Sun.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world." Sun grinned.

"So what do we do now?" Ruby asked, "I guess we just stand here and watch since we can't join in."

"Yeah…I guess so." Yang sighed and nodded.

"If we're really going to do this," Blake spoke up, "We may as well spread out and make sure things stay orderly, if we're going to try and redeem ourselves we'd better make sure nothing goes wrong."

"Wow Blake-y," Yang smirked, "Already

Blake rolled her eyes but said nothing, dispersing with Sun into the crowd and vanishing from view easily, Ruby followed suit, apparently heading for the punchbowl where she could be a wallflower as much as she wanted to be without anyone being able to tell her otherwise. Normally Yang would, but then again it's not like they were capable of socializing like this anyway.

 _Dammit, maybe this wasn't such a good idea._ She seethed in resentment as she tried her best not to glare at the happily dancing couples on the floor.

"How's the party going Yang?" A voice made her jump and spin around to face her fellow blonde and leader of Team JNPR. He was well dressed in a dark suit, long pants and a white tie, it made Yang's eyebrows jump.

"Fancy seeing you here, it seems to be going fine." And then a sly thought occurred to Yang, given that JNPR was a co-ed team…

"So where's Pyrrha? Since you're here I imagine she's not far behind." Yang elbowed him, "I'm guessing you're probably kicking up a storm with the ladies aren't ya permarcfrost? Got anyone in your sights yet? Or are you aiming to just be the single heartthrob that breaks every girl's heart?" She grinned and Jaune rolled his eyes.

Jaune laughed in response, "Seriously Yang? I don't think I'm anyone's heartthrob, you'd need to have pretty low standards if you wanted to go out with me." He shook his head, smiling at her antics, Yang adopted a rather perplexed expression on her face and stared at Jaune, "What?" The person in question lifted an eyebrow.

Yang suddenly lifted one hand to wag a finger in his face, "Jaune, _what the heck_?" She narrowed her eyes, "On the one hand, you're a really nice guy, and you're always willing to lend a hand whenever you're able and you do your best to do by right for those around you, but…" She placed both hands on her hips, "girls like a guy who can show a bit more self-confidence."

Jaune shrugged, "Well it's not like I'm looking for a position as number one Beacon heartthrob, besides I'd think that Sun and his team would have that in the bag already." He searched over the crowd, looking for the people in question, "Speaking of which, did you manage to get Blake over here with the monkey?"

"Yeah I've been meaning to thank you for that," Yang sighed and then to Jaune's surprise she put an arm around his shoulders, "So thanks a lot Jaune, Blake was definitely a lot more receptive than I imagined she would be." She smiled at him.

"Not a problem Yang," He attempted to brush her hand away, but she kept a tight grip on his shoulder, "Yang? What're you-?" And then he noticed the look of concern on her face.

"You know I sorta overheard your conversation with Blake back in the library," Jaune went stiff and shot Yang a questioning look that bordered on a glare, Yang merely smiled, a nice, easy and gentle smile, "I just wanted to remind you that you have friends here with you too," She shook his shoulder lightly, "You don't need to feel like you have to bear all the burdens of the world on your own."

Jaune did not look especially convinced by her words given that he tilted his head to the side slightly.

"It must've been difficult for you," Yang let her hand slide off and sucked in her lower lip, "I know if I'd lost Ruby I…I'd be beating myself up pretty badly too." There were no words from Jaune for that.

"So…you…" Yang struggled to get the words out and then finally exhaled, "Practice what you preach alright? Don't be a hypocrite and don't be too hard on yourself, we're here for you like you're here for us." Yang held out a fist, "Blonde-buddies to the end?" She cocked a smirk.

"Sure," Jaune's return fist bump was a little weak.

"And now I think we've both been a little overly melancholic," And then Yang piped up considerably and thumped Jaune on the back, nearly making him fall over, "I can't enjoy myself but you sure can! So get out there and dance up a storm for me will ya?"

Jaune straightened himself up and smiled back, "I know." Jaune's tone was contemplative, "Thank you too Yang."

"Great! Now stop making that silly face of yours," And then she hit him at his lower back, "Stand up a little straighter, now go find a girl to charm." She slapped his back and shooed him away.

Despite the pleasantries, Jaune walked away feeling incredibly nervous about what Yang had said, although she had only really touched on the latter half of his conversation with Blake, it was the former part that had him worried sick. How long had she been listening to either of them before she chose to butt in and pull Blake away? Had she overheard anything related to his identity and Blake being a protector? And if so…

 _Dammit, I should've clarified that part when I was there, but if I had asked maybe she would've gotten suspicious and then I would've looked like I had something to hide form her! But now that I haven't I…_ Jaune sincerely hoped he was stressing out over nothing and that it would come to nothing.

 _Maybe Blake was able to deflect it away, well she's a smart kitty anyway, and now I think I…_ He spied the punchbowl.

 _I need a drink._ That thought settled firmly in his mind and it was not going to let go anytime soon, so he headed over, and was surprised when he found his fellow team leader leaning against the wall sipping her own cup of punch.

"Hiding out? Or living it up?" He asked as he approached, Ruby pushed out her lower lip and shrugged in response.

"Both I guess." She shifted to make space for him once he had collected his own glass, both fell into a comfortable silence.

"You didn't come with anyone?" She asked.

"Nope, just here to show my face and make sure none of you do anything stupid." He replied, "I would've left Ren and Nora to do it, but I don't think you'd be comfortable with Nora spending all her time just glaring at the lot of you, speaking of which…" He looked over the crowd, "Where's Weiss? I haven't seen her yet, is she off in some dark corner getting comfortable with Neptune?" He tried to crack a joke.

"No…well I guess her original plan _would've_ been to bring Neptune to the dance but…" Ruby tilted her head to the side, "Seeing as things are the way they are, I suppose she's just glad she's even involved at all."

"Ah." Jaune relaxed, "And how about you though?" Ruby turned to look at him, "How're you holding up? You don't seem like the sort to enjoy this sort of _social gathering_." He took a long drink as he maintained his gaze with hers.

"I'm fine, I'm just…" Ruby shook her head as she looked over the dance, "I'm…I don't really _get_ the whole…music and touchy-feely things and dancing and… _stuff_."

"Well…I suppose it's not for everyone," Jaune gave her a 'and what can you do about it?' sort of look, "I mean…I don't necessarily enjoy it either but…you know…"

"I…know…?" Ruby did not get it.

"I may or may not have to eventually one day possibly take up the reins of government either as you-know-what so I'm…" Jaune hummed, "You could say I've been _trained_ for it." Ruby's eye lit up in understanding and she nodded quietly to herself.

"See…I know I'm really awkward and I don't mix with people all that well, but you mix with everyone well and it…honestly it makes me a little jealous sometimes…" Ruby pouted.

"You?" Jaune shot her a disbelieving look, "You're getting jealous that I'm…" He waved his hand in the air, "Not as socially awkward as you are?" He laughed at her.

Ruby pouted and punched his arm before settling back down, "It's not that though," She twiddled her fingers, "it's not just that you're more socially capable, it's…" She scrunched up her face, "How do you say? In my case I have problems socializing but you…" She paused and turned to him, "You're so…smooth? Like you can just socialize whenever you choose to," Gesturing back and forth with her hands, "Sometimes you're here together with all of us talking back and forth, sometimes you're with just one of us, sometimes you're on your own…" She trailed off.

"Well that's because…" Jaune trailed off.

"Yeah _I know_ ," Ruby sounded rather exasperated, "You know it's _really_ weird," Ruby pursed her lips, "When I first met you I thought 'gosh thank goodness I found a friendly face so quickly, he looks reliable', but then you were…like how should I say this? Really cold, you didn't flinch when I showed you my scythe, you don't really emote all that much…which I guess makes it all the more significant when you _do_ scream and shout at people."

"What? Since when do I scream and shout at people?"

"Like I mean when we were all going nuts at the beginning and we thought it was the end of the world and you forcibly dragged all of us back into reality."

Jaune looked thoughtful, "Alright I'll give you that," And then a rather smug smirk appeared on his face, "Say weren't you crying like a baby or something?" He chortled; Ruby took the opportunity to punch him rather hard for that.

"Gimme a break! I was scared out of my mind!" Ruby exclaimed, "I thought _for sure_ that I would never be a huntress."

"You could sure have handled it a little better though." Jaune looked at her from beneath her eyebrows.

Ruby slumped against the wall, and both lapsed into a rather tense silence, it took a while before she started speaking again.

"People always assume that I need to be taken care of like I'm a little child, or that I'm too innocent to the world or too good or things like that, and…" Ruby sighed, "It honestly gets more than a little annoying, Yang always babies me like I'm a kid, I'm fifteen for goodness' sake! I'm a huntress in training! I'm aiming to hunt Grimm for a living!"

"Well you totally do don't you?" Jaune smirked, "I mean you still cry a lot, you still drink milk, you still act like a child sometimes."

" _Sometimes._ " Ruby forcefully emphasized the word, "I'm doing my best to grow up here, but people don't make it any easier if they're just going to treat me like one anyway."

"Well no one's saying that you _have_ start growing up so fast, I mean…" Jaune looked down into his almost empty cup, "It's fine to hang on to your childhood."

"Is that so?" Ruby quirked an eyebrow, "Whenever I get that impression it's always so condescending, like people are saying _'you should just remain a kid and don't ever grow up!_ '" She dropped her voice, making Jaune snicker.

"Hmm, how does that saying go again?" He looked up and furrowed his brow in thought, "Only the foolish are so certain while the wise always doubt themselves?"

"…Are you saying I'm a fool?" Ruby did not look very happy.

"Well you _were_ dead-set on bringing down the White Fang without being clear on the potential consequences." Jaune pointed out, that made Ruby deflate rather quickly and she dropped the glare.

"I dunno, Blake said that we should be taking pre-emptive action to…make them reveal their plans so that it was in your best interests…something like that." Ruby rocked her head.

"Passing responsibility now? That's not very _adult_ of you, especially since you're the leader." Jaune smirked as Ruby let out an exasperated groan.

"Can we just stop talking about that? I'm really not in the mood."

"Ok."

They fell back into silence again.

"You know talking about _you_ and the whole and…you know…" Jaune nodded back, both silently acknowledging what they could not say out loud, 'And when I first learned it I was really excited like," She put her hands on her head in an exaggerated act, "A real prince? That exists? I mean I knew about the House of Vale but a prince had just appeared right in front of me, like something from one of the fairytales I had read when I was a kid." She paused and pursed her lips.

"I really thought you were some sort of hero, knight in shining armor, prince charming, that sorta thing." She said quietly.

"…sorry to disappoint?" Jaune tried.

Ruby did not apparently hear him, because she continued with, "So if you're the hero, what am I?"

"…Damsel in distress?" Jaune once again tried to crack a joke.

"No!" Ruby put her foot down hard and shook her head in fierce denial, "I'm _not_ the damsel in distress! I'm _definitely_ the hero!" She folded her arms and rocked her head, and then she fell silent and seemed to grow almost somber in tone of voice, "But if you're the prince…then maybe I'm not supposed to be the hero? I mean all I've really done is be problematic for you haven't I?" She leaned back against the wall and sighed with a weak smile on her face.

Both fell silent.

"Maybe I'm supposed to be the comic relief here and you're the actual hero." She tried to crack a joke.

"Nah, I doubt that," Jaune bumped his shoulder with hers, "There are plenty of stories where the hero is merely one…I suppose you can say cog of a great machine, and he or she is instead beholden to a higher power that he or she takes orders from."

"So you're saying maybe I'm still the hero…but I report to you?" Ruby looked rather skeptical.

Jaune shrugged and cast his eyes downward, "Ruby…you know I didn't come here to be a hunter right?"

"Yeah? So what, you're still making a difference."

"So…" He turned his head to look at her in her eyes, "I think…there will be a time when I…might have to leave." Ruby's eyes widened on hearing this, "I don't really know when but…you know if duty calls then…I'll have to return to my homeland." He said softly, "And when that happens, you'll have to take care of them."

"Wha…me?! But…" Ruby stammered as an utterly astonished look appeared on her face.

"You're a good leader Ruby, one much more suited to this lifestyle than I am," Jaune continued without really taking heed of his companion's consternation.

"But you're a good leader too!" Ruby protested, "You led us all in defeating that Manticore Grimm during initiation." She pointed out.

Jaune waved her remark away, "That doesn't really matter, that's not what a prince these days is supposed to be doing, maybe in the past a prince would've lived and died alongside his followers, but not these days." He shook his head, "I have to think of my own people as well, I'm their leader in that respect That's what Kings, Queens, Princes and Princesses are in a sense, they're leaders of people first and foremost, I didn't want to be born with that responsibility, but it's one that I'll definitely fulfil as best as I can." He drummed his fingers on the wall in quiet contemplation.

"I'm not a knight –as much as I want to be one- I'm a prince." He finished.

Ruby seemed to be deep in thought as well, and then suddenly she stood up straight and moved so that she was right in front of Jaune, at her height level, she had to look up at Jaune whereas Jaune literally had to look down on her. Despite that, she had a rather determined smile on her face.

"You know I just thought of something." She had a wide grin on her face as she leaned forward, Jaune backed up against the wall, it was rare to see Ruby with that kind of look on her face, and it was kind of chilling to see such a young girl look that devious.

"Both princes and princesses need knights right?" She grinned.

"Well…" Jaune was uncertain of how he should respond to that.

"So I'll be your knight, and you can remain the prince," Ruby smiled pumped her fist against her chest, "If the Prince must stay with his people to lead them, then the knight will have to protect them by destroying evil right?" She grinned, "If you can't fight yourself, then I'll fight for you in your stead and for your people…and take your share of the Grimm as my own, so just tell me where to go and where to fight, and I'll be the hero that makes sure your kingdom stays safe."

Jaune looked sceptical, "Huh, a hero knight who serves the crown huh? Are you sure about that?" He lifted an eyebrow, "I thought heroes were supposed to be beholden to themselves and not have any allegiances except their friends and companions."

"Uh...well about that…" Ruby scratched her head awkwardly and sighed, "I guess you could say that this little episode with the hearing taught me something about not running off all willy-nilly without knowing what the consequences might be and whether or not I'd be able to handle them as a leader, in the end I had to rely on _my dad_ to drag me out of trouble." She sighed and shook her head.

"Well at least it all turned out well in the end."

"But you basically saved my butt again!" Ruby was rather somber, "Sure you didn't know that… _you-know-who_ would pop up but your family gave us the distraction and the breather we needed to win." She took a breather.

"So I want to at least do this for you in thanks, I mean at least pay you back for helping us out. I really mean it, you've helped me keep my dream of becoming a hero, and helped my whole team in the process as well."

Jaune remained quiet and could only look on as Ruby continued talking.

"I mean I know it's a little silly since you're probably one of the best suited to taking care of yourself reasonably." Ruby was swaying back and forth before she glanced up with a smile, "But I think if you're not able to fight like the rest of us, than perhaps I can pick up the slack for you."

"Huh…well…I guess won't stop you if you really want to be the knight to my prince." Jaune grinned, "We could always use an extra hand around the Royal Enclaves, having a fully trained and equipped huntress to help out would be great."

"Ye _p_!" Ruby nodded excitedly, "so if you need a hand, day or night, rain or shine, Huntress Ruby Rose will be there to save the day for you." She did a little twirl and bowed, Jaune burst out laughing at the spectacle, and then a flash of red at the corner of his eye caught his attention.

He turned his head, just in time to see Pyrrha –in a flowing red dress- walk past through the crowd with a rather glum expression on her face, she moved past the other students heading up a flight of stairs. For a moment their eyes met and she seemed to be startled on seeing him, quick as a whip she averted her gaze and continued up the flight of stairs leading to a balcony overlooking the Academy.

 _What's happened to her now?_ Jaune wondered as he finished the rest of his punch and turned to Ruby, "Well enjoy the rest of your night; I gotta go see to something." Without waiting for a response he set his cup down and followed his partner, weaving slowly through the mass of students mingling together until he was able to climb the stairs up to the balcony and approach her.

He found her leaning on the railing on her elbows and staring out into the night sky.

"A penny for your thoughts?" He asked as he joined her in leaning on the railing, a quick glance told him that she seemed a little surprised.

"Hello Jaune." She greeted with a nod, there was definitely an inflection of sadness in her voice, but Jaune could not tell why.

"Did you come here with anyone?" He looked directly at her.

She shook her head, "No, no one asked me to the dance." She replied.

Jaune's eyebrows jumped in complete disbelief, he stood up straighter, "Now that's a surprise, I honestly thought that…well…I thought that a person like you would have a veritable queue lining up to take you to the dance."

Pyrrha sighed and gave him a weak smile, "You know Jaune…" She began slowly, "I've been blessed with incredible talents and opportunities." A gentle nod anda farawar look, "I'm always surrounded by love and praise, but after being on a pedestal like that for so long, you become separated from the people that put you there in the first place." A frustrated sigh escaped her throat, "Everyone always assumes that I'm too good for them. That I'm on a level they simply can't attain. I can't even form any sort of meaningful relationship with people anymore." And then she turned to to face him directly, "So...that's what I like about you Jaune. Even though you knew my name, you still offered your friendship to me as an equal, not only that, but thanks to you, I've made friendships that will last a lifetime." She sucked in a lungful or air.

"I guess, you're the kind of guy I'd love to be here with." Pyrrha said finally.

 _I…I hope that was enough, I've said my piece, and now I just have to see if Jaune feels the same way, I hope he does._ Pyrrha thought nervously and fidgeted with her hands for a bit before turning to look at Jaune. To her surprise, Jaune was looking at her with a stunned expression on his face, he seemed to swallow a little difficulty and bit his lower lip nervously.

Pyrrha remained silent, waiting for his reaction.

"Hm…well…that is…" Jaune quirked an eyebrow as he slowly turned away from her to look out over the balcony, "The kind of guy you like being with huh…?" He leaned over the balcony and peered down with a thoughtful look on his face, "Funny," Jaune chuckled, "I…I… really don't think that I'm the sort of person you'd want to be with." He looked away from her.

Pyrrha's face fell, she was being rejected, but then Nora's words rang in her head and she decided to press the issue, "But…why?" She asked timidly.

"I'm…I'm really not…" Jaune waved his arms about somewhat curiously, earning a confused look from Pyrrha, "I just…I don't…I'm…" Jaune tried to focus, gather his thoughts to form a coherent sentence.

"I'm…I'm sorry Pyrrha," He cast eyes downward, this was going to be difficult, he would rather not have to shatter his partner's heart into a dozen pieces but…well there was one secret he was not going to keep, "I just don't…" He took a deep breath, "I don't… _like_ you that way, I'm sorry."

Pyrrha's shoulders sagged as she clasped her hands and wrung them tightly, "I…I see…"

"…Yeah…" That was all Jaune could say.

"You know…would you at least…consider-" Pyrrha tried to start again, but was soundly cutoff.

"No," Jaune stated softly, "I won't let you live a lie and I won't lie to you anymore."

Pyrrha looked up at him, her eyes shining and tearing, "Lie to me?"

"I didn't go for home for summer break, that's one." Jaune remarked, Pyrrha's eyes widened considerably, "We were never going to be able to meet the King, that's two." He admitted.

"But…why would you do that?" Pyrrha's eyes were narrowed and her tone was demanding.

"I didn't want to stop you from going back home," Jaune replied, "Would you have knowing that the rest of your team remained in Beacon?" He pointedly asked, "And also…technically speaking I just wanted to humour Nora and get her off my back."

Pyrrha was forced to admit internally that she might not have been as willing had she known that Jaune was going to stay behind, Ren and Nora were obvious cases given that neither technically had a home to go back to. Jaune though? He had a perfectly good home in Armorica, or so she thought as least.

"But why didn't you go home?"

Jaune took a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling the memories well back up, "Because whenever I go back home…I…I can only ever see…" He paused, and turned to his partner "Do you know what it feels like? To look at your home and only be able to see the death, the destruction, the loss of _so many_ lives…" His voice cracked up, " _My own sister_ …who I failed to protect as an elder brother," Tears were beginning to well up, "I couldn't bear it anymore, I couldn't bear the pain that being there brought me." He sucked in a lungful of air and pursed his lips, "So I didn't go back, and I lied to you so that at least you would, and you sorted things out didn't you? You said so yourself."

She did, Pyrrha did find out a few things back home that sincerely surprised her, people that she had long thought gone that…

 _No,_ She shook her head, _That's not relevant now._

"So…for this liar…" Jaune almost laughed at his own words, "It would be better for you to…" He hesitated to speak the words that were probably harsher than necessary, but it would be better this way, infinitely better.

In his mind at least.

"Find someone else." He finished.

They both stood in silence, each contemplating the other quietly. It was a long time before Jaune was able to speak up again.

"So…what happens now?" He asked, getting confessed to was one thing, he had let her down as gently as he could have, but if she really wanted to push it, he would really have no choice but to put his foot down.

"You…won't consider?" Pyrrha looked away, she had dreaded this very moment, the possibility of rejection, the possibility that despite everything, Jaune just did not feel the way she felt about him, "Jaune we…we could work something out! I'm sure if you just give yourself the chance…give _me_ the chance then…" She turned back to him, but from the way he looked she could tell he had already made up his mind.

"I won't let you live a miserable lie." A straight answer, a reasonable answer, just not the answer she was hoping for.

"So…that's it then huh?" It was hard to keep the anger out of her voice, the indignation at being rejected.

"…I suppose it's presumptuous to assume we're still friends?" He backed away a little, putting space between the two of them.

"No! Of course not!" Pyrrha quickly said, "It just means I need to try harder to get you to fall for me." She smirked.

Jaune rolled his eyes, "Until then I guess," He shrugged, "You know if you wanted me to take you to the dance, you could've just asked," And before Pyrrha could speak he held out his hand, "But since we're here already, would you like to dance?"

"I'd…I'd like that." Pyrrha said with a demure expression as she hesitatingly took his hand.

As Jaune led his partner slowly towards the dance floor, elsewhere, Team RWBY had gathered to watch the proceedings from a higher level.

"I really hope this works." Ruby watched at Jaune danced with his partner.

"I'm sure it will, I think we all did a good job." Weiss nodded.

"I doubt if they'll allow us to go on missions though." Blake sighed, having left Sun to take a break.

"At the very least, allow me back into Vale _please_." Yang groaned.

"So when are we going to tell someone about what we know?" Ruby asked.

"General Ironwood is right there." Weiss gestured to the man in question, dancing with Professor Goodwitch.

"Yeah hehe, 'hey sir-general-sir, how's your night going? Just popped by to tell you that the White Fang are doing something southeast of Vale, you can handle it right?'" Yang rocked her head from side to side.

"So… _after_ the dance?" Ruby twiddled her thumbs, the rest of her team exchanged glances and nodded, it seemed like they were all in agreement.

"Well what are we going to do until then?" Blake asked as she leaned over the railing.

"Watch, wait…" Weiss shrugged.

"Well, I'm bored," Ruby grumbled, "I think I'll just…go back to the dorm now." She nodded at the others and began walking away.

* * *

 _ **A little while later,**_

"How on Remnant…" Weiss Schnee massaged her forehead and covered her eyes, "Did 'I think I'll go back to my dorm' turn into 'I'll pick a fight in the CCT'?!" She angrily scolded Ruby while the rest of her team, Team JNPR, Headmaster Ozpin, General Ironwood and Professor Goodwitch looked on.

Ruby wished the ground could just open up and swallow her whole considering that they were all standing in the –deserted- Beacon courtyard.

"This is most problematic," Glynda clicked her tongue and looked at the Headmaster, "I _distinctly_ recall assigning a team of students to watch over Team RWBY to ensure that something like _this_ wouldn't happen." Ozpin merely nodded and turned to look at Team JNPR for an explanation.

Jaune facepalmed while the rest of Team JNPR shot Team RWBY baleful looks.

"Perhaps we should continue this tomorrow when we're all rested?" Ozpin suggested, "I think the dance has more than a few of us exhausted."

"Ozpin…" the General spoke up, Ozpin turned to him just in time for the General to walk away, Ozpin sighed and followed suit, the two men stopping a short distance away so that they were well out of earshot.

"Well while we're waiting, perhaps you could give me some details about this woman?" Glynda looked back at Ruby.

"Well…err...she wore a mask and never said a word. But she did fight with glass though." Ruby wracked her head for more things, "I doubt it was her semblance though, her clothing also lit up whenever she attacked." She explained.

"Hmm," Glynda lowered her head and stroked her chin, "Except the glass, that sounds like the woman I fought that night wasn't it Ms. Rose?"

"Yeah now that I think about it…" Ruby scratched her head.

"You're suggesting we stand by and just _watch_?!" Ironwood suddenly shouted, startling all of them and making them turn to watch the two headmasters a far distance away. Although Ironwood had quieted down, both he and Ozpin were making excitable and angry gestures at each other.

"Do you think the woman is connected to Torchwick and the White Fang?" Ruby asked.

Glynda furrowed her brow, "It's too early to say for certain, on the other hand, is there anything else you learned?" She asked.

Ruby turned to look at the rest of her team, they all nodded, "Yeah, one last thing…err…" Ruby scratched her head awkwardly. Meanwhile Glynda waited with a raised eyebrow.

"We probably should've told you this earlier but…when we first went to investigate the White Fang…" Ruby swallowed hard, "We learned that…that they're operating somewhere southeast of Vale." Her eyes flicked away uncertainly, not really wanting to face what she knew would be the wrath of Professor Goodwitch.

Silence descended on all of them for a moment, Ruby dared to look back

A shadow had passed over the Professor's face, her eyes were boring holes right into Ruby, who was doing her best not to run away, "And _why_ pray tell…" Glynda's voice positively dripping with venom as she leaned in close, freezing Team RWBY to the spot, "is this _only_ coming up now?"

"Professor Goodwitch, we-" Weiss tried to intercede but was soundly – _and brutally-_ cut off.

"I believe I was speaking to Ms. Rose Ms. Schnee." Glynda's eyes never once left Ruby's own.

"Well…" Ruby fidgeted with her fingers and feet under the intense look, "Before the whole hearing thing we thought we could…you know…bring down the White Fang by ourselves but then there was the highway thing and…yeah…" She answered.

"We didn't know when and who we ought to have gone to Professor." Blake tried her hand at speaking.

"Besides your own headmaster of course…and me…and the Vale Police Department…" Glynda tilted her head to one side "So it seems like _trust_ is in _incredibly short supply_ in these parts," She sighed, "I was honestly about to consider allowing you lot back into Vale for the hard work you put into the dance, but this is honestly _beyond_ damning. If anyone else had found out during the hearing you could've been charged with withholding evidence and been _thrown_ straight into jail!" She raised her voice angrily.

"Alright that's enough of that." Ozpin's firm voice broke through the air, making everyone pay attention to him as he walked back with Ironwood in tow, "You're all to return to your dorms this instant and _remain_ there for the duration until we figure this out, do I have _everyone's_ understanding?" He asked as he straightened his glasses.

There was a murmur of "yes professors", "understood professors" and the like.

"Now be off with you, and I want all of you…and I mean _all of you_ to remain discreet about this matter alright?" Nods all around to confirm what he said.

As the professors watched the students leave, Ironwood turned to Ozpin, "I'll have my best men on it, I would rather have more force but I'll acquiesce this time Ozpin." Ironwood folded his arms.

"Thank you for your generous restraint James." Ozpin sighed, he had eventually folded, with Team RWBY firmly out of the game and the unlikelihood of Team JNPR picking up after them, that left only Atlas to do anything at all, "Let's just hope it doesn't backfire on any of us."

"It won't," Ironwood assured him, "We're only conducting reconnaissance out in the wilds with a small team of highly trained men, they'll do fine." He stated.

"I hope so."

Team RWBY and JNPR bid each other a rather cold and leery goodnight as they retired to their dorms, and as Jaune lay in bed, despite his attempts at sleeping, he could not stop thinking about the White Fang.

 _Relax,_ he told himself, _Ozpin and Ironwood probably have it completely under control, they'll probably dispatch a bunch of Special Forces guys over there and have the entire place cleaned up easily, nothing to worry about._ He shrugged to himself and tried to close his eyes, and yet sleep would not find him easy.

 _Nothing to worry about at..._ He sat up with a low growl and rubbed his head vigorously, _why won't you get out of my mind? What am I even thinking about? Why am I so concerned for all of this? The headmasters should have it under control and I should stop worrying so much so why?_

He looked at the clock, it was slightly past one, _am I being paranoid? What am I being paranoid about? That the White Fang will do something that might threaten me? But that's…_ He pressed one eye into the heel of his hand.

 _That's ridiculous, they've had plenty of time if they wanted to…and yet why can't I just shake this feeling that something big is about to happen?_ He grunted, _even if I wanted to do something about it what could I do? It's not like I have anyone I could…_ Eyes went wide, and then went dark.

 _No, they wouldn't, not after I so blatantly went and asked to get my friends out of trouble that one time…but maybe…_ Taking his scroll in hand, he went through his contacts, _maybe I don't have to go so far up the chain,_ and He pressed one contact in particular, _I'm just giving off some second-hand intelligence, maybe this way I can finally get some proper sleep, at least I really hope I can, shit maybe this isn't the right thing to do, maybe I should just-_

It connected quickly, moment of truth "Hey…Gravelyn? Its Jaune…"

* * *

 _ **A few minutes later,**_

Gravelyn hung up on the call and tapped his finger idly, thinking on his options; he then punched in a new number and waited for it to connect.

"Yes?" Came the voice on the other end.

"I think I've found what you've looking for."

"Which is?"

" _An opportunity_ , given by your friendly neighbourhood White Fang scum." Gravelyn smirked.

"…Alright, lay it on me."

And so Gravelyn explained the situation to his almost otherworldly master.

"And _where_ _exactly_ did all this come from?"

"Ah…I've…" Jaune had basically begged Gravelyn to keep his involvement quiet, "Alright I admit I've been digging a bit myself, we know the White Fang has a sizable presence so I wanted to take some… _pre-emptive_ measures if necessary." He bit his lower lip, hoping that would convince _her_.

"I think I've already made it clear that the prince is expendable haven't I? But in any case," The voice clicked its tongue, "You're thinking this could actually cause some serious damage to the council?"

"Yes, I think His Majesty's visit riled up the populace some, on the other hand it might still be just a _little_ too early, plus there is the possibility that it could turn out to be _nothing_ at all, and that fact that Atlas will definitely be moving on whatever little shred of intel they have." He explained.

"So what're you suggesting?"

"We someone to check it out, just make sure it's actually _something_ and not nothing."

"…What you're suggesting is risky, neither Ozpin nor the queen can know about us, not yet; the situation is not advantageous to us."

"Well I was just thinking," Gravelyn leaned back in his chair, "I just remembered _someone_ whose involvement could allow for…shall we say…a certain amount of _plausible deniability_." He grinned, "A certain someone who got back from Vacuo a couple of months ago."

The voice on the other end seemed to realise something, "...then do it, just remember, _be discreet_ about it." And then it cut off.

"Sheesh, so melodramatic." Gravelyn grunted as he set to work.

* * *

 _ **Atlas Military, Vale Command Headquarters**_

Soldiers, technicians and pilots scrambled about, even at this late hour, activity was still going strong as the base where the Atlesian military stayed while in Vale was still being expanded in order to fully accommodate the garrison and all of its vehicles, weapons and supplies. Robots moved to and fro, pushing and carrying large crates on the ground while overhead, airships moved about making their deliveries, their engines spitting fire as they went about.

Any person who looked upon this might have only seen chaos, and yet to the men and women of the Atlesian Military, it was _organised_ chaos, a heavily synchronized and choreographed dance.

And in the midst of this dance…

"I want you to focus on getting the space clearing for Hanger 12 done first, we need the additional space if we're going to get a space for the airships, I want that on top of the priority list!" Winter ordered the head engineer as she flipped through a clipboard.

"Understood ma'am." He saluted and departed.

"Next up, why is the construction of the robotics facility taking so long?" She admonished another engineer with an angry look.

"We're doing the best we can ma'am!" He protested, "A lot of the knights were pulled off construction duty due to repeated Grimm attacks on the perimeter."

 _Hmm,_ Winter looked at her notes, _Can't pull off any or the perimeter risks being undermanned, can't requisition the airships because they don't yet have a proper place to be armed and resupplied here in Vale, let's see where I can divert manpower from…_

 _On the one hand, we need it up and running so that we can start to really deploy the bulk of our forces here, on the other hand…is it really a priority level item?_ She flicked to reports on the latest Grimm attacks.

 _So far so good, I'd feel better if it were done faster but…_ Winter sighed, _I suppose you can't have everything._

"Then keep at it as best as you can," She nodded, "The faster we have it up the faster we can start deploying additional forces.

"Yes ma'am!" He saluted and moved off.

A loud crash and a cry sounded and Winter turned her head to the noise, one of the soldiers had seemingly tripped on something and was down underneath the crate he was carrying.

"And _someone_ get that man a medic!" She shouted as several other soldiers ran up to help, she turned to walk away slowly, carefully observing all the business around her with a watchful eye, ensuring that all personnel were performing up to mark and that none of them were slacking off or doing anything extraneous to their duties.

"Ma'am Schnee!" Winter spun on a heel and found her aide running up to her, "You have a call from General Ironwood, and he says it's important that you take it now!" She nodded and followed him back to her office, which at the moment was just a makeshift tent with some tables and chairs in it.

Once she got there her aide passed her a scroll with the General already on the line before he exited to wait outside.

"General, Specialist Winter reporting for duty." She gave a short salute which the General returned.

"At ease Specialist, I'm calling you now because some disturbing news has just come up," Winter internally clenched but kept a straight face and nodded as the General continued, "I have just received actionable intelligence about a potential White Fang operation based somewhere southeast of Vale City."

Winter remained impassive, "What do you need sir?" She honestly wanted to ask where on Remnant the intelligence had come from and whether or not it was verifiably safe as well as confirmable. On the other hand it was not really her place to question him, and if he judged it to be accurate, who was she to question his judgement?

"The location identified corresponds with the area of the abandoned Mountain Glenn expansion, I need you to investigate the area, I don't need you to conduct any overt action, just take a small team and report back to me your findings and we'll see where we should take our next action from there."

And now Winter was starting to get a little nervous, she could read between the lines enough to know that the General was basically asking to conduct a military operation on another kingdom's sovereign territory. Well they were basically _already_ a major military presence in Vale, but after the little incident involving the stolen prototype Atlesian Paladin, everyone was basically on their toes since not only were the remaining prototypes yet to be recovered, they were now also under tight scrutiny by the Vale council not to mess up again.

So if it ever got out that they were conducting covert operations on their soil in addition to that, the political fallout would be…

Well Winter would rather not think about that too much, she had had enough of politicians after having to sit through that ridiculous hearing for her younger sister.

And yet, Winter was still a professional soldier first, trained to follow orders and go where her leaders demanded she go, and in that respect, the only words that she said to the General were:

"When do you need me to start sir?"

* * *

 _ **The Royal Enclaves,**_

 _ **Mount Kiffhaus,**_

 _ **The lonesome fortress,**_

A magnificent, tall and proud castle stood at the very edge of a cliff, its many towers and walls sprawled with the men and women of the Royal Legion hastily going about their business, whether they are sentries patrolling the battlements and keeping watch for any sign of a Grimm incursion, rangers preparing for long-range recon patrols, Legionnaires drilling their skills or just spending their free time resting and bonding with one another.

This then was none other than the lonesome fortress, so named by its creators as one of humanity's deepest penetrations into the wilderness before the Great War, still standing strong in the face of the Grimm despite decades spent and blood split.

And deep inside this sprawling maze of passages, hallways and corridors, there lived a certain woman, who at this time was currently sleeping in her room quietly.

*BRING**RING**RING**RING* The scroll on her dressing table started acting up, the woman growled as she was woken and pulled the pillow over her head in annoyance as the ringing reached a screeching, screaming crescendo.

*RRRRRRIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNGGGGGGG*

She had half a mind to smash it, the dressing table, the floor beneath it, and damn the unfortunate soul who lived in the room beneath hers. She fumbled about with one hand, trying to reach for the scroll, in the process she accidentally knocked it off the table and onto the floor, all the while it rang incessantly.

"FUCK!" She swore at the top of her voice as she reached down and plucked it off the floor; she held it above her face as she continued lying in bed.

The woman in question took one look at the face on the scroll and let out a singularly loud, long and disgusted groan at the image. She gave the time a glance and was even more irritated to find that it was only 4am in the morning. Growling in frustration for having been disturbed so early in the morning for what she imagined were probably trivial reasons, she thumbed the green button while making sure to deliver her strongest glare before the connection was made

Once it was she immediately started talking, "It's bloody 4am in the goddamn morning, so this _better be_ an emergency." She snarled through half-lidded eyes.

"A very good morning to you to," Crown Prince Edward smirked, having long since gotten used to dealing with the rogue huntress's mannerisms.

"Y'know if you're just gonna smirk at me like that…I'm just gonna hang up and go back to sleep." The woman shrugged and made for the red button.

"How do you feel about the White Fang?" Edward suddenly asked out of the blue.

The woman considered the question for a moment before answering, "If you mean whether I prefer blasting their heads to pieces or if I prefer gutting them slowly and leaving the animals to bleed to death…" She tilted her head, "It depends on my mood."

" _Great_ ," The smile on Edward's face was just insufferable, "Well see there have been reports that there may be a major White Fang operation somewhere down…" The Crown Prince glanced away for a moment, "Somewhere down southeast of Vale."

 _Southeast of Vale? That's…_ The location rang a bell and the woman tried to recall from memory what exactly it was that was southeast of Vale.

"You mean Mountain Glenn?" She said, it made sense in her still sleep-addled mind somehow, from what she could remember from Professor Oobleck's history class…something something attempt at expansion something something failure something something everyone involved died horribly and painfully.

Probably eaten by a Grimm or something.

 _Yeah that's probably correct._ She noted in her mind.

"Well yes, that would appear to be the case." Edward continued.

"So what the hell does any of this have to do with us? Just let those idiots sort it out themselves." The woman waved him off, and then something occurred to her, "Or is it…you called me because you want me to check it out don't you." There was no questioning about it; just a simple statement of the obvious, there was no other reason as to why the Crown Prince would bother calling her up.

"Yes." A straight answer, nothing to infer about that, nothing to analyse or think about it, it was one of the things the woman did like about the Crown Prince, "We need to gather intel on their activities, see if they're planning any major operations and disrupt them accordingly before they're carried out."

"I hope you do realise I'm still considered a rogue," Now it was the woman's turn to smirk, "I don't think the Vale Police Department would appreciate my intruding on their domestic affairs."

"That's the point," Edward returned the smirk, "Should you be caught in anything untoward, we'll immediately disavow any relation towards your actions and condemn you and all your past actions, simple as that."

The woman exhaled sharply as she let her hand –and the scroll- fall to the side momentarily before she picked it back up, " _Brilliant_ …"

 _On my own again huh? This'll be fun._

"When do I leave?"

* * *

 **I'm kinda glad all of the interactions went sorta well, only real problem was the very last one.**

 **I don't know how many times I rewrote the scene between Pyrrha and Jaune, every single time it just came out as _so_ unsatisfactory, one idea was to have the both of them end up in an argument when Pyrrha pushed to far, another was have it be funny by having Nora butt in halfway, one more was to have Jaune just deflect by being oblivious again (Which is one facet I hate). **

**It's spectacularly hard for me because I _really_ didn't want to end up projecting my extreme dislike for Pyrrha onto the story, trying to maintain in-character-ness and not go completely balls-to-wall OOC was darned difficult. In fact its still rather dissatifying in the current form, because I wanted Jaune to be able to let Pyrrha down gently, demonstrate that he did not feel the same way about her that she did for me, and at the same time I wanted to project a 'did not give up' part on Pyrrha, because at this point**

 **In the end, what you got was the most satisfactory thing I could think off, this included reintroducing that old plot point from Chapter 15-17, which I sorta planned to do.**

 **Now despite the very shippy sounding overtones of Jaune and Ruby's interaction (Which I admit is partially because I main Lancaster), I still don't really have any one ship in mind, in fact since there's not really a lot of story left to go, I don't think this fic will end with any one pairing confirmed for Jaune. I suppose there is still just a little bit of time to try and develop something, but I think I'll just leave it at no pairings.**

 **I didn't entirely intend for the conversation to go that way in particular and start getting meta about the whole fanfic thing, I thought it'd be nice if I developed an alternate sort of meaning to the title, whether or not it refers to**

 **A. Jaune, as BOTH the knight and prince**

 **B. Different people, the latter being Jaune and the former being someone else**

 **Even I admit it's a little asinine if you think about it, especially considering that it's not going to be really plot-important somewhere down the road. Truth be told in canon-RWBY proper, I'd be just as fine with a platonic ending.**

 **I honestly feel that RT ought to have developed their relationship a little better, mostly because it's the only real reason why RWBY and JNPR are friends in the first place, canon!Jaune is the only member of JNPR who interacts with RWBY on a consistent basis, from bonding with Ruby, flirting with Weiss and even getting cheered up by Yang, Pyrrha and Ren keep to themselves while Nora just has fun here and there.**

 **Meanwhile, Penny's death (A person Ruby interacted with consistently) doesn't activate her silver-eyes and yet Pyrrha (Who Ruby has NEVER interacted with) does.**

 **And on another note, everyone is thinking that Team JNPR will basically switch places with Team RWBY storywise and I'm just sitting here thinking:**

 **"There's already a military special forces-esque character in Winter, like why don't I just use her instead? And maybe pop in someone from the Royal Enclaves to mix things up a little?"**

 **So there you go, this time Winter and the mysterious woman are going to be responsible for the breach.**

 **I'll be honest, originally it was going to be Gravelyn, but then if he's a protector it really doesn't make sense to get him to run off and do something while the Prince is in Beacon, much like how you don't get the secret service to perform counter-terror operations overseas.**

 **So mystery woman comes in instead. I really wanted to show the difference between her and Winter, I think some of you probably have her identity in mind, its not overly hard if you just look back on the story here and there.**

 **The next chapter is the breach! One more after that and I will have completed volume 2!**

 **So I do appreciate all your reviews, faves and follows!**


	29. Brace for Impact

**Or, as I like to call it:**

 **Winter Schnee and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.**

 **Technically night, since the pre-breach events take place during the night leading into the early dawn hours, but you get the point right?**

 **On a completely unrelated side note, I seem to have completely lost the Arkos audience with the last chapter, even though I thought I definitely lost them since I posted Chapter 6 in like…MARCH and definitively stated that I didn't like Arkos. So actually kudos to you –if you're still reading since the two of you who said you were stopping probably aren't- for holding on so steadfastly to my story until Chapter 28 hoping that Princess Pyrrha of Mistral was going to be a thing.**

 **It won't be...**

 **...**

 **I'm sorry?**

 **On that somber note, do enjoy.**

* * *

A cold wind swept over the lonely ruins of a long abandoned expansion. Once teeming with the lives of tens of thousands of people, now a mere ghostly shell of a city, its empty apartments and half torn office buildings bearing witness to humanity's failure. Now the desolate relics of what once stood as a symbol of progress were now home only to small packs of roving Grimm, and perhaps slightly _more_ recently, the potential presence of a criminal organization and its terrorist companions.

Oh, and also plus one Atlesian Army recon team, chopped to provide support for one Atlesian Specialist.

"Do you see anything yet?" One Atlesian soldier asked another soldier sitting at the window looking over the ruins with a pair of binoculars.

"I got a whole lot of nothing man." Gunnery Sergeant Sandy 'Disciple 02' Taylor answered, "I don't think there's anything but ruins out here…" And then he spied a black shape coming into view, "Along with the occasional black thing with teeth and claws." The beowolf wandered around rather aimlessly, neither searching for anything nor meaning to go anywhere.

"Well keep looking Taylor," Staff Sergeant Drake 'Disciple 01' Seamus answered, "The intelligence we got was supposed to be fresh."

"Let's hope it hasn't become rotten yet." Sandy sighed as Drake turned away, "It's seriously tempting to just shoot that thing." He patted a sniper rifle leaning against the wall, "One less Grimm to worry about."

"Do that," a voice spoke sharply as a figure came up the stairs, "And you'll the drag the whole pack down on top of us." Winter 'Frost' Schnee said, now out of her formal uniform and wearing far more practical combat fatigues though she had ditched the armor, she never felt comfortable with it.

"Just saying ma'am." Sandy grunted as he returned to his post, Winter shot him a dark look as she turned back to Drake.

"Sergeant Seamus, where are Privates Miller and Baker?" Winter asked tersely.

"They went to scout the surrounding area, see if there was anything they could find." Drake answered as he walked over to a nearby table and checked the maps over. Winter followed suit, laid out in front of her was a map of the old Mountain Glenn, with their position marked out clearly. It was merely an old and half-ruined apartment complex that nevertheless, still presented a commanding view of the surrounding area of half-constructed houses and ruined buildings.

A pretty good vantage point all things considered.

Their primary purpose here was just reconnaissance, it had only been a couple of hours since they had inserted into the mostly dead ruins, navigating between the Grimm had proven tricky, but in the end the group of five had made it to a safe spot. So now all that remained was to find a trace of the White Fang's presence.

 _If_ they could find it at least.

So far no luck, the day was already beginning to end, the sun's last rays were sinking into the horizon, and soon night would be upon them, and yet so far nothing to show for their efforts.

 _Patience Winter, patience,_ Winter took a deep breath and let it out, _Good things come to those who wait for them._ It had only been a day after all, missions like these could last entire weeks, they ought to have been lucky the weather had been mild and was forecast to continue being mild, back in Atlas sub-zero temperatures were the norm.

"Hmm." She hummed to herself, thinking of what their next move ought to be, obviously it would not do to simply wait and let the White Fang come to them since they had no idea where they operated from. She shook her head, hopefully this would a short operation, once it was complete she could hand over the intel and let someone else take charge of the attack and subsequent mopping up.

 _Where shall we start looking for them though?_ Winter looked over the map, the entire Mountain Glenn expansion was impressively big, and of course it had to be since it was meant to house several tens of thousands of people. In the short amount of time that she had had to prep for the operation, she had done her best to read up on the history of Mountain Glenn, in the process learning of the rather horrifying eventual fate of its inhabitants.

Still, they were of no concern now; the dead would lie where they fell, it was up to the living to carry on for them, and in this case…

 _The underground section of the expansion._ She pointedly noted in her head, it had been the one piece of information that had stuck out to her, the entire population driven underground to escape Grimm attacks, only to be sealed in when the Grimm broke through from surrounding caverns. The abandoned underground was the perfect place for a bunch of criminals to hide in, the only problem was how she was going to find an entrance in. With the original tunnel from Vale completely sealed off from that end, she would have to look for the exit on this end.

That was assuming it to, had not been sealed off.

From the map she had, she could see that the original station was quite a ways off and placed deep within the heart of the expansion itself, which she figured would be a good place to start looking for the White Fang.

Sighing, she took a step back and rubbed her forehead.

"Both of you stay here, I'll just be going for a short walk, maintain contact at all times." The two exchanged a looked, but nodded as Winter exited the room and began making her way out of the apartment.

Stepping out onto the road, she inhaled sharply the cool night air and looked around her, staring at the empty buildings around her.

She walked slowly but carefully, ensuring that she was always aware of her surroundings and keeping one hand right at the side of her sword, ready to lash out at the first thing that threatened her. Grimm activity in this area was not felt to be particularly high compared to some of the places that Winter had been to, all the same, it paid to be careful.

As Winter moved about, between deserted alleyways, through streets and around corners all the time keeping her head on a swivel, unbeknownst to her, a dark figure with a pair of blue eyes watched and followed her every movement from the shadows.

A loud sneeze startled Winter and her hand immediately went to the grip of her sword, her eyes flicked left and right, trying to sieve out the noise amidst the ambience.

"Bless you." A voice came from a short distance away; Winter crept up to a corner and peered around it carefully.

"I swear it's the fucking dust, it keeps messing with my sinus!" A short distance away, there stood four men, fully garbed in the White Fang uniform with mask and everything, they were gathered at the sidewalk of the road, apparently taking a smoke break, letting out tall, long puffs of smoke, two of them were sitting down while the other two stood up with their rifles still at the ready.

 _Well that was sooner than I expected._ Winter smirked to herself as she began hatching a plan of action, a quartet of these grunts would be no trouble whatsoever to a highly-proficient Specialist like her, she only needed one alive to interrogate him for information.

So transfixed was Winter on observing the quartet of White Fang troopers that she failed to notice the dark figure creeping up behind her. The figure was clearly that of a woman, just as tall as Winter in height, on her head sat a Stetsons hat along with a pair of dust goggles, she wore a black, long-sleeved coat that hung down to her knees that was closed with a zip, a brown belt going around the coat at her waist on which sat a holster containing a single pistol, a pair of fingerless gloves on either hand, finishing the look was a pair of sleek, dark pants tucked into knee-high boots.

The woman crept right up behind Winter, "Whatcha looking at Winnie?" The woman asked, peeking over Winter's shoulder.

"White Fang, four of them, fifty meters in the open, I…" And then a thought just occurred to Winter. In an instant she drew her sabre and lashed out behind her, the woman jumped back, causing the blow to connect with the wall, creating a loud screeching sound as the blade scraped against the concrete, she drew back to retaliate.

"Aaaaannnnddd you just gave away our position." The woman shook her head and shot Winter a disapproving look.

The Specialist balked when she realised who it was, "You?!" She hissed out.

"Hey what was that?!" Winter's head flicked back as the very audible *click* of safeties disengaging could be heard.

"Told ya so." The woman shrugged.

" _What're you doing here_?" Winter hissed as she backed up against the wall with the other woman.

"Who's there?! Come out where we can see you!" The White Fang trooper yelled.

"I came to look for my 100,000 lien." The woman whispered with no hint of danger.

"Your 100,000-?" Winter was confused for a moment before she knocked her head back into the wall and shut her eyes, she was currently conducting an operation against the White Fang and had neither the time or the inclination to deal with this, "Listen I'm on an op and I don't have time to deal with this now."

"It's just 100,000," The woman scoffed, "the SDC isn't going to miss it when they make millions on the back of cheap labour." She rolled her eyes.

"The deal was for you to _protect_ our refinery," Winter growled, "Not _annihilate_ half of it!"

"Hey _I_ took the blame for that one!" The woman protested, "and gee, maybe next time you should take a look at your goddamn safety protocols, who the _fuck_ puts _fire dust_ in _thin_ _wooden crates_ and then _stacks_ them together." The woman hissed back, "You're just _asking_ for it."

"Ok look," Winter stared directly into the other woman's eyes, "There's a White Fang patrol out there and they're coming over here, so do you want to continue doing this all night or-" Before she could finish, the other woman pushed her to one side and walked out into the open with her hands in the air.

"Ok you caught me!" The woman shouted at the White Fang troopers who tensed up considerably, keeping their rifles aimed at her.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" One snarled.

"I'm a rogue huntress and I'm investigating _your_ activities." The rogue huntress answered, hearing the word 'huntress' made the troopers even more tense, they visibly shook in fear, knowing that they were way out of their depth, the woman grinned on seeing this and lowered her arms, "I'm not technically getting paid for it since I'm classified a rogue and all, but I've still got a minor bone to pick with you lot."

"Keep your hands where we can see them!" A different one spoke up this time, his finger was already on the trigger.

"Now that we're in agreement as to who is on superior ground here, I'm going to give you animals two choices," The woman said, holding up two fingers, "One is you tell me what you're doing here, and I'll let you go. The other is that you don't, I kill you, and I find out myself." She lowered the hand and let it rest on her hip, "So what's it going to be?"

The four White Fang grunts exchanged uneasy looks, and then the lead one yelled and lifted his rifle…

A series of four gunshots echoed out into the night, so quickly that one might have mistaken it for a single drawn out shot, all four White Fang grunts dropped dead.

The woman had not even give any of them a chance at all, before the lead grunts finger was even able to apply any pressure to his rifle's trigger, all four of them received a black hole opened up on each of their foreheads with blood pouring out as they fell to the ground. The woman smirked and holstered her pistol walking up to stand on top of one of them.

" _Stupid choice._ " She grinned sardonically as she knelt down to examine their weapons, picking up one's sword and giving it a few practice swings, "Hmm, not half bad I suppose," She took it and its sheath and set it on her belt before moving on to the assault rifles they had been carrying.

She clicked her tongue as she detached the magazine and inspected the rifle's inner workings.

"Workable, I think I can use this," She began searching them for extra ammunition, stocking them into a pouch that she clipped onto her thigh. She turned around as Winter began walking up to her with a glare on her face.

"What was that for?" Winter scowled, the rogue huntress titled her head questioningly.

"What? You've seen my quick-draw before." She shrugged.

"I meant we could've interrogated them to find out what they were doing here." She shot her best glare that was completely ignored, "Now we've lost our _only_ lead."

"Unlikely that they were going to give up that information," The rogue huntress shrugged, "True believers would rather die first; I for one _intend_ to give them that privilege." She shot a rather devious smirk at the Specialist who merely looked on in disapproval.

"Fair enough, but _we_ could've used that information!" Winter threw her arms out, "Or would you like to wander around in circles for the next few days wondering where on Remnant they've been hiding all this time?!"

Before the rogue could respond, they were loudly interrupted, "Ma'am!" Winter turned her head to see her both Privates 'Disciple 03' Miller and 'Disciple 04' Baker standing with their rifles raised to their shoulders, pointed threateningly at the rogue huntress.

Winter immediately held out one hand to stop them, "At ease men, she's…" Winter turned back to the rogue huntress who looked at her as if to say 'why are you giving me that look?'

"Well are you?" Winter pressed, annoyed at her companion.

"Am I _what_?"

"Are you with us or not?"

"Depends," The rogue shrugged, "Am I getting my 100,000 lien back? I'll charge you an additional amount on top of that for my help." She held out one hand and wiggled her fingers; Winter gave her an incredulous look, and then shook her head and rubbed her forehead.

"Oh I forgot, only _you_ could charge people when we're in the middle of a situation." Winter sardonically replied.

The rogue huntress turned to look left, and then she turned to look right, and then walked a short distance away to the side, before turning to look back at Winter, "I don't see a situation anywhere but here." She stated simply with a smirk on her face.

Winter's face contorted in anger, "Why you-!" She was cut off when she felt the ground disappear beneath her feet, "Wha-?!" She cried out as she fell for a split second before she found herself hanging in mid-air. She looked up and found the rogue huntress holding onto her arms above her head as her legs dangled freely.

"Watch your step." The rogue smirked as she pulled Winter up and onto her feet, the Specialist dusted herself off with a muttered thanks.

"Ma'am, are you alright?" Miller ran up to her, she waved her hand.

"Just got caught off guard, that's all." Winter shook it off and knelt down, peering into the sinkhole, "Huh…I guess our intel was correct, if I'm not wrong, then this must be the underground section of the Mountain Glenn expansion right?" She looked at the rogue huntress who nodded in return.

"The one the populace ran to for shelter after Grimm attacks became too much on the surface," The rogue huntress stroked her chin in quiet contemplation, "It's the perfect hideout, a massive tomb for countless thousands sealed off from the main city, no one would even _begin_ to look for a criminal organisation here."

"Alright then," Winter stood up and looked at the others, "Miller, Baker, get our equipment, we'll prepare to climb down." She then tapped the button on her mic, "Disciple 01, do you read me?" She talked into it.

"Loud and clear ma'am." Drake answered.

"Scan the area for anymore patrols and report back to me with the other two, Iwill stay here with our new companion." She turned to look at the rogue huntress who peered over the edge and into the darkness below.

"Fancy seeing you in command now." The rogue huntress laughed. She jumped away as the edge she was standing on began to crumble and fall away into the hole. "That's the way the cookie crumbles," She laughed lightly and stepped away, Winter followed suit, backing away to ensure that she did not end up falling into another hole.

"Why _exactly_ are you here of all places?" Winter questioned, "I thought you went straight back to Armorica after what happened in Vacuo."

"Well maybe I didn't," The rogue huntress shrugged, "Maybe I decided to look around in my old stomping grounds to see what's what."

"You expect me to believe that?" Winter raised an eyebrow, "You know as well as anyone that you're still classified a rogue huntress on _every_ mission board on Remnant-"

"With a bounty of 50,000 lien for anyone bringing me in alive." The rogue laughed again, "Sadly, no one ever thinks to look for me in my homeland, and when they do look for me when I'm out and about? I usually just put one in their skulls." She tapped her pistol at her side.

"You're not carrying your revolver this time," Winter noted in surprise.

"That's right, I'm in anti-personnel mode, so I left the Grimm gear back home." The rogue grinned as she took a seat on the sidewalk, crossing her legs as she did so.

They fell into silence.

"So about my 100,000 lien-"

"Oh you're _utterly impossible_!" Winter exasperatedly growled, "You can't be seriously suggesting that I pay you for blowing up one of the SDC's dust refineries and the countless lives lost in that attack!"

"You were _going_ to pay me for it," The rogue pointed out.

"Like I already said," Winter ground her teeth as she stood looming over the seated woman, stabbing a finger in her direction, "The job was for you to _protect it_ from a potential White Fang sabotage attempt, not _destroy_ it and render it unusable for _months_!"

The rogue threw her hands out, "Hey at least I killed all the saboteurs for you! Your security team was useless as fuck! And like I said," She looked up at Winter from beneath her hat, "You need to review your safety practices so that _fire dust_ doesn't end up stacked in _wooden crates_."

Winter backed off with another angry growl, but remained and stood beside her companion, with a sigh she finally decided to sit down.

"So…your highness-"

The air turned cold, "I'm pretty damn sure I told you _never_ to call me that," The rogue huntress growled, "I was _never_ a princess, and since they kinda-sorta disowned me, I'm really not technically one anymore."

"Ok then…Ms. Arc-"

"Not that either." A harsh snap came.

Winter rolled her eyes, "Alright then… _Annie_." She glowered at the person in question.

" _Much_ better." Princess Anne –better known as Annie Arc-, firstborn child of Duke Jacques and Duchess Viola grinned widely like a maniac, "Now what can I do for you Winnie?" Her eyes narrowed slyly at Winter's grimace from her nickname.

"So what the hell are you doing here anyway?" Winter asked, "You get a job against the White Fang or something?" The Specialist scoffed.

"Maybe~?" Annie cocked an eyebrow, "What's it to you?" She smirked.

"Nothing." Came the curt reply, "Just checking to make sure you're not working against me, have to be careful knowing you." Winter shot her a suspicious look.

Annie rolled her eyes, "Come now Winnie, you know I would never work with the White Fang, not after what they did to my family." Even though she seemed completely ambivalent, Winter knew better than to test her.

"I don't know," Winter narrowed her eyes and glared at Annie, "You're not well-known to me for having scruples, not since you first told me that you didn't care for collateral damage."

"That's right," Annie nodded, "Everything that I am paid to do is fine, whether by knife or gun or fist, I just-"

"Don't usually attack children," Winter interrupted, "but everyone else is fair game isn't it? If anyone gets in your line of fire then that's-"

"Their fault." Annie finished with a smile, "Not my problem if you run right past me while I'm unloading lead on the target." She tapped her hands on the rifle she was now carrying, wondering if she had time to field strip it properly and make sure that it was properly working.

 _Ah fuck it, why not?_ She shrugged as she lay it out in front of her and began taking it apart, she did not at the moment possess a cleaning kit or anything, but still at least it paid to know what condition it was in. Winter chose to ignore her and hugged her legs to her chest as Annie carefully laid the bolt and the barrel out on the ground in front of her.

 _Hmm, it's not rusty at least, piston appears to be good,_ She checked slowly, _Barrel could use a cleaning though and good oiling, and the receiver has not been finished properly._ She stuck her tongue out and licked her upper lip, Winter watched the gunslinger so to work with slow, careful precision.

She looked back up into the sky and considered her rather difficult history together with the mercenary princess.

* * *

" _Drop your weapon!" Winter yelled, brandishing her sword dangerously, "And maybe I won't take your head." She ground her teeth._

" _Go to hell." Annie spat as she had an Atlesian soldier in a choke with a pistol pointed at his head, "Drop your sword and I won't paint his brains_ and _yours all over the wall._

* * *

That had been a pretty bad misunderstanding on one Winter's first missions as a Specialist for the Atlesian Military, the mercenary had gotten caught up in a military operation to root out a suspected White Fang cell hiding out in a long abandoned mining site. She had apparently taken a job from some other shady character to wipe the cell out to a man and bring the leader to him personally for some reason or the other that Winter could not remember.

In the end she managed to compromise, even though high command wanted the leader of the cell for intelligence purposes, in the end the mercenary took away the leader to somewhere while the Specialist managed to get all the other material that was found in the hideout, hard drives and scrolls full of data.

A couple of days later, the leader turned up dead, executed with a single gunshot to the head.

It was only later after Winter had done some of her own digging around that she found out about the rogue huntress and what she had done back in Vale to get her declared as such. Winter had been disgusted, a lone huntress had gone completely bonkers over the course of a single night and torn the VPD a whole new one, back then she had resolved to bring her to justice the next time they had met.

It was not to be though, even though they had a few other run-ins, once she had been hired – _hired_ , Winter had checked and there was no mission on the mission boards for it- to help escort a caravan while Winter had been ordered to perform SND on a known Grimm gathering in the same area, and then another one where Winter had been on a training exercise while Annie had apparently gotten lost…or that had been the excuse anyway. She was never able to catch the damn rogue even if Annie managed to exchange scroll numbers with her.

* * *

" _It seems like you and I just keep on bumping into each other."_ _Annie laughed._

" _Oh for gods' sake…" Winter growled beneath her breath._

* * *

Through all that, Winter had developed a begrudging respect for the rogue huntress, she was incredibly talented, unmatched in her marksmanship and brutal in hand-to-hand combat, more than capable of surviving on her own for long periods of time in the harsh wilderness, also somehow very good at manipulating aura, and that was all without any known semblance of her own. The only thing stopping her from being the model huntress?

Her sociopathic disregard for others.

Despite all that, due to her rogue status and ability to be held accountable for anything that went horribly wrong, Winter ended up going to her when a report had come in suggesting that the White Fang were targeting one of the SDC's major refinery complexes in Vacuo. Since it was in another Kingdom her own hands had been tied, but an offer of 100,000 lien plus reimbursement of travel costs and the rogue huntress/princess/mercenary had been out of her castle and in Vacuo within days.

Of course, the mercenary then decided that the best way to accomplish her job was to blow the saboteurs, the workers, the security team, and half the refinery into orbit.

"You're quiet tonight," Her voice cheekily came out, Winter looked back at her and noticed that the rifle had been reassembled, "Not planning on taking my head tonight?" She turned and smirked.

"No," Winter waved her off with a disgusted look, "I don't have time now, the White Fang have a major operation in the area and I need to find out what it is." Winter paused, "And you still haven't told me what you're doing here."

Annie sighed, "A Royal Protector apparently did some digging, found out some stuff, and since I'm _so_ expendable, here I am." She explained as she took out her pistol, slid the cartridge out, worked the slide to eject the chambered round and began loading bullets by hand into the cartridge from a pouch on her waist.

"I met your brother," Winter spoke up.

"Yeah I saw you both on TV, now _that_ was some hilarious shit." The snicker was sharp and mocking, "How's he doing?" She re-inserted the cartridge and holstered her pistol.

"Fine? At any rate he's on track to not be you."

"Not hard to _not be me_." There was not a hint of remorse for any of her past actions in the low chuckle.

"You know you could really stand to care a bit more." Winter frowned, as Annie looked at her weirdly, "He is your family after all."

The mood shifted, and not for the better, Winter's words seemed to tick Annie off at any rate as one eyebrow twitched, the mercenary gunslinger looked away, "What happened to Catherine was a mistake, and it's true…" She seemed to seethe and Winter noticed her clenching one fist, "I _should've_ been there for my younger sister, but on the other hand…" She tapped one finger, "If my only brother thinks wasting four years of his life in that rotten place is a good idea, who the hell am I to stop him?" She scoffed.

"Hey!" Winter groused, "He's doing good work in Beacon, I can tell his presence is appreciated by both faculty and students, you could at least stand to be proud of that." Winter had only really learned off Annie's true identity when she had gotten to know Janice, who in turn had not given a favourable impression of the mercenary. But since Annie had returned to the Royal Enclaves in the aftermath of the attack, she had thought that perhaps some part of her was redeemable through her family.

"Stand to be proud of the fact that he is wasting his time hiding there?" Annie snapped back, "If he wanted to hide, he should've just asked to join the Royal Legion as a nameless soldier. If he wanted out of the Royal Enclaves…" Annie stopped right there and went still before shaking her head, "Forget it, why the hell am I even discussing this with you?"

Winter rolled her eyes, "And I thought we bonded so well over the fact that we hated the White Fang for all it had done to us back in Atlas."

"We'll bond better when you fork over the money you owe me." Annie replied, Winter growled again.

"Not. Happening." Winter flatly stated.

"Alright then." Annie replied in voice just as deadpan as Winter's, "Just wanted to tell you that if those guys get in my line of fire they'll be just as dead as the White Fang." She clicked her tongue.

"Don't worry so much, if you try anything funny I'll just aim to take your head as usual." Winter shot back.

"Agreed." Annie nodded, and then turned her head to the side, "Looks like your pals are here," She stood up and dusted herself off, Winter followed suit. The four-man team had brought their weapons along with all their gear.

"You know if things start getting dicey down there…" Annie commented as they set about tying the rope, "You guys sure you wanna run around with all that gear?"

"You should probably be worrying more about yourself ma'am," Sandy smirked, "I don't see you getting loaded for a fight, want me to lend you my gun?" He held out his sniper rifle, Annie rolled her eyes.

"I'm all I need to fight." She returned the smirk as Winter tied a knot at the end of the rope while Miller and Baker held it, Winter prepared to descend first, taking a set of night-vision binoculars with her as she went. "I'll alert you over comms if it's clear." Winter ordered.

"Understood ma'am," Miller nodded.

"Ok, and just to be clear," Winter turned to Annie, "If you're gonna stick with us, you're coming down next."

"Why?" Annie cocked an eyebrow.

"So I can keep an eye on you," Winter explained as she began lowering herself down with Miller and Baker slowly giving line to her.

The Specialist found herself descending into an inky blackness, most of the light came from the hole that she was descending through, as she continued being lowered, her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, allowing her to take in the sight. She was in an absolutely immense cavern, all around her she could see similar ruins and abandoned buildings littering the entire area, stalactites hung down from the roof of the cavern.

 _So this is the underground complex…_ Winter had to admit it was quite impressive, and if she had not been on a military operation she might have taken the time to explore the ruins a little and take a few pictures for memorabilia purposes. The entire area was very dark, and yet off in the distance, Winter could just barely make out a series of dim glows where some figures could be seen moving about.

 _Looks like a pretty major encampment alright, now it's time to see what they're doing._ Looking down, she found herself being gently lowered onto the rooftop of a tall building sitting against the wall of the cavern.

 _Alright, time to get to work._ She dropped lightly down onto the rooftop, "Ok it's clear, come on down." she broke out her binoculars and zoomed in on the activity in the distance, she could just make out-

*THUMP*

Winter jumped as she felt the floor beneath her shudder as a loud, dull noise sounded off right behind her. She jumped away with her sword drawn, and found Annie in a crouching position, from the sound and the way she was in, Winter immediately guessed that the mercenary had simply jumped into the hole.

"What're you doing?" Winter growled as Annie stood up, "You're going to give us away at this rate!" She scolded, even though she knew it was a hopeless battle against the mercenary princess.

"That's your problem not mine." Annie shrugged, "Whoa…" She muttered and took in the sights for herself, "Man if this place weren't infested with Grimm this would make a pretty nice tourist attraction." She whistled as she peered over the edge to the ground below.

"A tomb for countless thousands makes a nice tourist attraction to you?" Winter could only give the mercenary a disgusted look and prepared to lift the binoculars to her face again.

"Why not? The ruins make for some pretty good scenery." Shooting a glance about her, Winter had to admit she was right in that department; there was a strange aesthetic appeal to seeing all of the crumbling, collapsed, torn open and leaning buildings, rubble and debris piles littered the streets below, the paint was peeling in large sections. The rusted metal of iron rebar protruded out from the many torn sections, the air was still and quiet, there was no wind, just a dead silence.

The remains of a broken dream of man.

"Regardless of that," Winter shook her head, "We-whoa!" She cried out in surprise as Annie pulled her to the side with her scroll in front of them.

"Say cheese!" She pressed a button, capturing Winter's stunned face alongside her smiling one with the rest of the complex in the background.

"Hey! Who goes there?" A voice made the two spin around, there stood two more White Fang troopers, the door behind them thrown wide open, "Who the hell are you?" They demanded as they raised their rifles.

" _Fools_." Annie hissed and went for her pistol, Winter grabbed her arm and stopped her, "What're you-?" That momentary distraction was all Winter needed.

Before either of the White Fang troopers could respond, the Specialist had activated a glyph below her, she shot forward in a flash, drawing her sword and separating it in mid-flight as she hurtled towards the opposing force.

They did not stand a chance.

Both blades tore right through the throats of the White Fang troopers; they did not even exhibit a death gurgle as they fell to the floor with a gentle thud. Winter swiped off the blood from both of her blades before she reconnected them and sheathed it at her side, blood was already pooling on the floor. Annie squinted at the Specialist as she walked up to investigate the two corpses.

"Just wanted the kill for yourself huh?" She smirked.

Winter shook her head, "Your gun doesn't have a suppressor, a gunshot here is going to be heard on the other side of the cavern, and I'm not going to let you just give away our position just like that." Annie cocked her head back but said nothing as she began searching over one of the bodies, "What're you doing?" Winter asked.

"Let me see if I can…aha!" Annie held up a scroll triumphantly, "Let's see if we can listen in on their comms." Winter pursed her lip and nodded, that was a sound tactical choice. At this moment, Sandy had landed, followed by Drake.

"Wow, that's some shit right there." Sandy noted.

"I don't think I wanna know the crap that must've gone down here." Drake agreed.

"Enemy encampment is just over there," Winter pointed out, "Wait for both Miller and Baker, Annie and I will sweep the lower floors of the building, find a spot to set up, this is where our mission really begins fellas." She ordered and began making her way to the door, "Hey come on stop stalling!" She grabbed Annie by the arm and roughly pulled her along.

The mercenary seemed not to actually notice because she remained fixated on the scroll, thumbing something on it, only stopping once Winter had walked past the door and entered the stairwell.

"-nd bring the*ZZZZT*e's asking *ZZZZT* and hurry it up! We don't have all day!" The scroll crackled to life.

"Got it!" Annie grinned triumphantly as she pocketed the scroll.

"Not bad," Winter had to admit, maybe the mercenary would be a good addition to their force as they descended to the topmost floor from the roof, "We'll sweep opposite sides of the building," Winter gestured to the two doors at the bottom of the first flight of stairs, "meet back on the ground floor?" Annie nodded as Winter went through one door while she went through the other.

The building turned out to be clear of anymore White Fang troopers, and Winter met Annie at the bottom of the stairwell.

Annie was listening in on the White Fang comms, _"HQ to alpha squad, send over."_

"That's their HQ." Annie noted.

" _Roger, central surface access point is clear over,"_ The voice came over the scroll.

" _Understood, continue sweep."_

" _Bravo calling HQ over."_

" _HQ to Bravo, send it."_

" _I'm seeing a lot of Grimm activity on the southern surface perimeter, but other than that area is clear over."_

" _Roger, take care Bravo."_

" _Charlie to HQ over,"_

"The patrols are slowly reporting in," Annie pocketed the scroll, "Sooner or later someone's going to notice that two of said patrols are quite dead." She smirked.

"Then I suppose we'd better get to work," Winter thumbed her mic, "Disciple 01, you guys settled in yet?"

"Affirmative, we're set up on the top floor we've got a perfect view of the encampment from here." Drake replied.

"Ok, I'll be right up soon, out." Winter turned away as Annie began walking out, "Where're you going?"

"I'm gonna go see what's what over there of course," Annie jerked her thumb over in the direction of the encampment.

"This is just a recon mission, we're not supposed to be infiltrating." Winter corrected.

"Says you," Annie rolled her eyes, "I don't know if you've noticed but we're not really on the same team here." The mercenary gestured back and forth between her and Winter.

Winter growled angrily, "Let me guess, you're going to go over there, shoot anyone who looks at you funny, blow everything up that you don't like, and then call it a day." Winter deadpanned.

"Wow you're fucking psychic alright." The eye roll just made Winter boil.

"Don't be an idiot! Even _you_ would have a problem with that many hostiles!" The Specialist wagged her finger in the mercenary's face angrily, "There's no need for a fight here, we can leave that to the regular army."

"Whatever, you wanna stay here go ahead, I'm going over there." Annie shouldered her rifle and moved off, leaving Winter behind to fume in silence.

 _It shouldn't be a problem; we're far away enough that anything she does won't blow our cover, and we can still extract easily enough, on the other hand…_ Winter let her body sag and dropped her head, _I don't want to end up letting her destroy anything useful, plus there is the fact that_ _I don't really want to have to explain to the General how a recon mission ended up becoming a search and destroy mission or her family that she's dead or…_ Winter paused, realizing there was a bit of cognitive dissonance going on in her head.

 _Argh! That woman is so infuriating!_ She grumbled internally as she wracked her brains for a solution, before deciding that it would be best if she followed the mercenary, also it might provide for a closer look than from afar, plus since the mercenary had the scroll…

 _Alright Winter, this is just a minor change in operational parameters, nothing to get upset about…except the post-mission report…_ Winter sighed in exasperation and quickly followed in the direction of the mercenary with a loud growl under her breath.

"Disciple 01, do you read me?" She spoke into her mic.

"Loud and clear Frost."

"Change of plans, I'm going over there, provide armed overwatch for me and Annie." She ordered tersely.

"Are you sure about this? Orders were not to engage-"

"I'm not engaging, I'm _just going to take a closer look_ ," Winter corrected while trying not to scoff at herself, "do I have your support?"

"…Yes ma'am, Disciple 01 out."

She found Annie strolling in the open without a care in the world, looking left and right eagerly like a child in a theme park, seemingly more interested in taking in the sights and sounds around her than in the fact that they were currently deep in enemy territory with little support beyond the recon team that Winter had brought along with her. Winter hurriedly caught up to her, walking right beside her while trying to remain alert to her surroundings, and then Annie started whistling a rather jaunty tune.

"Will you take this seriously for _even a minute_?" Exasperation poured from Winter.

"What do I have to fear from a bunch of poorly-organized rabble? What do _you_ have to fear in any case?" Annie stopped and looked at Winter as the Specialist came up alongside the mercenary.

"That arrogance of yours will get you killed _princess,_ " Winter stabbed a finger on Annie's chest, "don't underestimate the White Fang, surely even you have heard of their leader? We don't know if he's in the area in person." Winter explained, "And we both know he has a bone to pick with _both_ of our families." Winter was doing her best to urge caution on the part of her companion, she seemed to be failing though.

Annie raised a curious eyebrow, "You mean Adam Taurus?" Winter nodded and placed her hands on her hips, "That's alright…" Annie unsheathed the White Fang sword and held it in front of her, eyeing the blade carefully, "If he wants to find trouble with me, then I'll just kill him like _so many others_." The little smile on her face would have been terrifying for a normal person.

Winter's face contorted in anger, "Don't let your pride cloud your judgement now!" She scolded, "He's a dangerous man that even the most experienced hunters would have trouble handling!" Annie laughed and kicked at a small stone on the road, sending it a fair distance down.

"The _most experienced hunters_ had trouble grabbing at my 50,000 lien head," She sighed merrily and looked up at the cavern ceiling, "In my mind…I have already killed that man _in a thousand ways_." She looked at Winter out of the corner of her eye, the Specialist grimaced as Annie snickered.

"Alright, just this once I'll play by your rules, so what's up first?" Winter was surprised when the mood immediately shifted, Annie seemed rather a lot more agreeable all of a sudden. The Specialist tilted her head one way, and then the other, trying to figure out what the mercenary was trying to do.

 _She's probably trying to fuck with me again,_ Winter rubbed her forehead, she could feel a headache coming on.

"We do this quietly alright? We go in there, grab what information we can get, listen in on what we can and then we hightail it right back out." Winter jerked her thumb back in the direction of the apartment building, "Understood?" She was expecting Annie to blow her off.

Surprisingly, the mercenary merely answered with, "Ok." Winter blinked and took a step back uncertainly, eyeing the smile on Annie's face.

 _Yeah, she's definitely fucking with me,_ Winter grunted, "Ok then, first-"

"Disciple 02 to Frost," Sandy's voice came over the mic, "Heads up, you've got four hostiles coming around the corner of the office block beside you." Winter shot Annie a look, the mercenary simply shrugged.

"Copy that," Winter ground her jaw a little, "We'll do this my way, _quietly_." Winter forcibly emphasized the last word.

"So do we eliminate or let them pass?" Annie asked as she looked around the corner.

"We let them pass, follow me." Winter headed to the building, ducking low behind the wall of the building with Annie right behind her. The Specialist peeked over the wall and through a broken window, watching the patrol's torchlights pass over them as they approached closer and closer around the corner.

"Through the building." Winter whispered, her companion nodded, and once the torchlights passed over them again they hopped over the wall and landed lightly on their feet, dropping low again and hugging the adjacent wall as the patrol passed by and moved on.

"Let's find some higher ground nearer the site, I want to scout it out properly," Winter said, Annie responded affirmatively and the two exited the building on the adjacent side, and dashed across the street, ducking into the opposite building just before the patrol looked behind them. They found themselves in what appeared to be the remains of another office building, they continued moving forward, gingerly opening doors and grimacing at every creak and crack they made.

Winter halted as she heard a rumble in the distance.

She turned to Annie, "Did you hear that?" She whispered.

Annie nodded, "Heavy machinery, we're getting close." The mercenary shouldered her rifle.

"Sandy, Drake can you see anything?" Winter asked over the mic.

"Yes ma'am, it looks like we found the stolen prototypes, I see two right at the encampment, they're using it for heavy lift."

 _Huh, looks like this might pay off after all._ Winter thought to herself.

They continued in this manner for quite some time, ducking and weaving their way through the ruins carefully, making their way past former living quarters now caked with dust, half-destroyed office spaces with old terminals still at their places, dodging patrols at every turn. Winter had assumed that the mercenary would lose her patience and start gunning down everything in sight, but miraculously she held her tongue and followed the Specialist's lead as they navigated to the encampment.

The two ended up in a small three-storey building overlooking the encampment, making their way up to the second floor, they stopped and went stock still as they heard voices.

"Man I hate that Torchwick guy, all he ever does it boss us around. Do we really gotta work with him?" One voice said.

"It's what the boss says, and what he says…goes remember?"

"I just can't believe Adam Taurus of all people agreed to this, working with the human scumbags?"

Both Winter and Annie exchanged a glance, so that man really was in the area.

"Hey if he says to work with them than I'll suck it up, besides you really wanna be on the receiving end of him?"

"… no…but I mean…"

"Well if it's no than just shut up and do your job Burns, it's not that hard anyway." The two continued bantering back and forth even as Winter looked at them from the staircase, the both of them were standing at the far end of the room, apparently watching over the encampment from their own spot.

Winter looked at Annie as the latter uncovered a long knife and nodded with a cruel smile on her face, "One on the right," Winter whispered.

They crept up to the pair of troopers slowly, controlling their breathing, measuring their footsteps until they were right behind. And then both made their move, Winter slammed one hand over the mouth of her target and sent her sword right through his back, Annie was slightly more brutal, targeting the throat, regardless both sentries fell dead in an instant and the two lowered them slowly to the floor.

Winter immediately crouched by the window overlooking the encampment.

"I think they're getting suspicious now…" Annie tapped the scroll she had plucked off the White Fang trooper, "We might not have long before someone finds out." Winter nodded in acknowledgement and peered out the window.

The encampment was set in a large, mostly open area that was positively bustling with activity, White Fang troopers milled about all over the place in much the same way that Atlesian soldiers milled about on their base. As she looked over the place, the very first thing that caught her eye was the Atlesian Paladin-290 prototype carrying large cargo crates while being directed by another trooper while others watched.

 _Those are our prototypes you terrorist animals…_ Winter narrowed her eyes.

"That's a lot of activity…" Annie noted, there were many other crates stacked in tall piles lying about, "It's almost like they're preparing for a war."

"They probably are." Winter ground her teeth as she watched the prototype robot got about its work, a short distance away she could see a full length train with multiple railcars that the White Fang was loading boxes onto, "That railway can only lead into the city itself, but what're they planning?" Winter stroked her chin, "They can't possibly intend to invade with the Atlesian Military here."

"Now who's being arrogant huh Winnie?" Annie mocked, but Winter ignored her as they continued their quiet observation.

"…What're you hiding?" And then she noticed a tall man in a bowler hat with a cane and a white coat exiting one of the railcars, and her eyes lit up, "That's Roman Torchwick!" She exclaimed quietly.

"Who?" Annie asked.

"Bowler hat, white coat, redhead, first railcar on the left."

"I see him." Both watched as Roman began conversing with another White Fang trooper.

"Dammit, if only we had a way to listen in on the conversation from over here." Winter cursed, she watched as another pair of troopers began loading up a rather large object onto another railcar.

"You wanna get closer?"

"That'd be a little dangerous, I think we should leave and report back, we don't have the resources to take on all of them now, plus we have no idea what they could be planning." Winter shook her head and turned back, Annie pulled her back by her shoulder with a glare on her face, "What?" Winter slapped it off with an annoyed expression.

"We're already here, let's just get closer, after all didn't you come here to find out what they were doing?" Annie chastised, "Besides that's your robot isn't it? That can't possibly be something the animals created all on their own."

Winter furrowed her brow, "You just want an excuse to shoot someone don't you?"

"While I admit my trigger finger is getting itchy, it's not like there's a lot of them, plus I'm pretty sure you and I could take the lot of 'em easily." Winter looked very skeptical.

"My orders are not to engage the enemy unless I have to," She dismissed the thought with a wave of her hand.

"Not even try and sabotage the robots to make your own military's life easier?"

"No."

"Come on Winnie, you take the grunts and the goons, I'll take the mooks and the henchmen." Annie pleaded.

"No, and what the hell does that even mean?"

"What? Don't tell me you don't know the difference between grunts, goons, mooks and henchmen- no you know what? Nevermind, you take left side I'll take the right."

"I have my orders Annie."

Annie shrugged in response, "Well I guess mine are different than yours then." And then she put one foot onto the windowsill, Winter's eyes went wide.

"What're you-" The Specialist had no time to finish her sentence as the mercenary jumped out of the window, landing easily on her feet right in front of the encampment, being so close to the White Fang she was immediately spotted.

"Hey! Who the hell-" The trooper was cut off by a burst of lead tearing into his body; he dropped dead on the spot.

The whole encampment was immediately alerted.

" _What the hell are you doing_?!" Winter shouted futilely as Annie ignored her and ran off to continue her one-woman war on the White Fang, ducking between stacks and crates as she did, Winter let out a growl that was part anger part exasperation.

"Disciple 01 to Frost, what just-" Winter immediately cut Drake off.

"Frost to Disciple team, provide armed overwatch! I'm going in; shoot any White Fang you see! That's an order!" So saying she leapt out of the window without waiting for a response, using a glyph to launch herself in midair after the runaway mercenary, who was gunning down troopers left and right with hyper-accurate burst firing as the White Fang struggled to respond to the surprise attack.

Gunfire echoed all around as battle was joined between Atlas plus one mercenary and the White Fang. Winter let loose a string of very un-ladylike language as she deflected the wild gunfire from one trooper, accelerated with a glyph and impaled the trooper on her sword. Ripping it out she launched herself into the air with another glyph to dodge more gunfire from a larger group of troopers coming at her from the side, a second glyph in the air fired her like a meteor right into their midst. The Specialist was a veritable whirlwind of blades as she smashed into them, cleanly wiping out the group in close combat, cutting them to pieces with militant efficiency

She switched her attention back, the train was beginning to pull out of the area, heading for a tunnel a short distance away with Annie chasing after it at fullspeed as more White Fang troopers tried –and failed- to stop her as her rifle ran out of ammo and she switched to her pistol.

"Frost! You've got more incoming all around you!" Drake's voice crackled over the radio, Winter looked to the side just in time to see a spurt of blood erupt from a trooper's head and he fell to the ground.

"Cover me! I'm going for the train!" Winter ordered and raced ahead as several White Fang troopers raced towards her from the front, their swords raised high. One of them dropped as his head almost literally exploded, another took a high-caliber rifle round to the chest, Winter took out the last two with quick swipes and continued on.

The train was pulling out quickly, Annie was not nearly fast enough to catch it and Winter was just too far away if she continued running like this, on the other hand…

"If you're going to do something so stupid…" Winter ground her teeth as she powered up a series of glyphs, "At least do it properly!" she felt the entire world seemed to blur around her as her speed increased rapidly. Her target was Annie, who was running along the tracks after the quickly disappearing train a short distance in front.

"Heads up! Arms out!" Winter yelled, Annie barely had time to flick her head back before the Atlesian Specialist crashed into the mercenary at full speed. Winter did not stop, with one arm around Annie's waist, she continued powering up more glyphs along the tracks, hurtling herself forward faster and faster until with one more glyph, she jumped and landed on the roof of the first car, both stumbling forward to catch themselves.

"Frost to Disciple team, exfil' out and call for extraction, alert General Ironwood to the situation!" Winter ordered into her mic.

"Understood, good luck ma'am, Disciple 01 out." Drake answered and the mic went dark as the train entered the tunnel.

"I thought you weren't gonna fight?" Annie asked as she reloaded both her pistol and rifle and cocked it.

"I didn't want your highness' pretty ass getting killed on my watch," Winter sardonically said.

"Fair enough, so what's-" She was cutoff when a panel on the roof opened in front of them, a trooper burst out with his rifle readied. Before he could fire though a single shot from Annie's rifle toppled him back into the hole. As he did so Winter made her move, dashing forward and hurling herself into the hole, slamming both blades into one trooper on the way down, ripping them out and using a glyph to close with the remainder on one side. Meanwhile, Annie swung down right behind Winter and opened up on the other side of the railcar, massacring the other half of the car as Winter finished up on her side.

"Now what do we have here?" Annie gestured to a strange device sitting in the middle of the railcar, it had a long, cylindrical shape and appeared to have multiple tubes of dust mounted on it.

Winter walked over to examine it herself, "Looks like this is where all that dust that criminal was stealing was going into." She noted to herself ran a finger over one of the tubes.

Not having been entirely up to date on events, Annie could only say, "What?"

"Nothing," Winter shook her head, "It seems to be some kind of-" She was soundly cut off when the device suddenly lit up and started beeping, a countdown timer appeared on a black screen.

"Bomb." Annie blandly finished, "Well to the next car then!" She quickly ran to the front, Winter keeping pace behind, they exited and quickly hopped onto the other side. Winter turning to decouple the railcar behind her, to her surprise she found the lever moving itself and soon, they were leaving the railcar behind.

"Hey!" She exclaimed, "What on Remnant was-"

*BOOM*

A massive explosion rocked the tunnel and sent a shockwave that made the two stumble a little, the train shook from the sheer force of the blast, the car with the bomb disintegrated into complete nothingness in a conflagration of flame with shrapnel flying every which way in the aftermath. Winter instinctively summoned a glyph in front of them that deflected the pieces away harmlessly from the two.

"Wow they must really hate us." Annie chuckled while Winter cocked her head curiously.

"Why'd the car detach itself?" She looked at the mercenary for an answer, Annie merely shrugged.

"Who cares?" She turned away and towards the door, "Let's keep going." With a yelp, she viciously kicked the door of the car down. Winter ran in first whirling her blades as a hailstorm of gunfire was directed right at them, she closed rapidly and cut the first two troopers to pieces as Annie laid down a withering barrage of fire. It took scant moments for the two to clear out the second car.

"Got another bomb here." Annie noted the device in the middle of the car.

"We should keep moving, we have to stop the train." Winter noted and continued moving out and onto the next car. To her surprise, once again the car separated on its own and detonated away from them. Once again a glyph came up and shielded the two from the shower or debris as the train continued rolling onward.

"Somethings up here, they wouldn't just detonate them for no reason." Winter furrowed her brow, and then her eyes widened.

"I think we got our answer," Annie let loose a dark chuckle as the two watched numerous Grimm begin pouring into the tunnel, chasing after the train. They could see beowolves, ursas, King taijitus, the whole lot of them were inbound right on them.

"So this is the White Fang's endgame!" Winter bared her teeth in a snarl, "Blowing the tunnels will release the Grimm from the mountains' deep cave systems. They're going to cause a breach right in the heart of Vale!"

"Then we'd better hurry the fuck up!" Annie agreed as she gave the railcar door a savage kick that sent it flying off of its hinges. They stormed into the car to find it completely empty and devoid of any White Fang troopers, there did not appear to be any bomb inside this particular car. Instead the interior was stacked with boxes, Winter kicked one off the side and sent it crashing to the ground, spilling out a stack of rifles.

"Weapons." She hissed.

"Explosives too." Annie opened another and found several dust grenades inside; she took a few for herself with a coy smirk on her face.

"How long have those _accursed animals_ been planning this? And right under the noses of every damn idiot in Vale!" Winter seethed and cursed loudly, to her this was a horrible intelligence failure on every single level possible from Vale to Atlas, if General Ironwood had not gotten his source right then and there. The White Fang could have enacted a massacre on the city without anyone knowing about it until it was too late. She clenched both fists angrily; someone was going to pay when she got back to-

"Watch it!" Her thoughts were cut off by Annie shouting, Winter found herself roughly pulled backwards. Just in time to dodge…an umbrella? She looked up and found herself looking into the eyes of a strange girl standing on the opposite side of the car, she had hair that was pink on one side and brown on the other, with her eyes reflecting the opposite sides of hair color. The entire outfit looked like someone decided one day that they wanted to be an ice cream and dressed accordingly in white, pink and brown.

And before Winter could do anything she found herself getting pushed forward by the mercenary, "Hey what-?"

"You deal with the henchmen," Annie remarked, "I'm going ahead." So saying she punched out a panel on top and hopped out of it onto the top of the train. Winter had no time to deliver some sort of rebuttal as she suddenly found herself being attacked by a blade extending from the umbrella. She dodged and jumped backwards to give herself space as her own blades were unsheathed.

The girl was much shorter than her, and yet judging by the smirk on her face, she radiated complete confidence and clearly had no qualms about going up against an Atlesian Specialist.

"Alright then," Winter shot the girl her own smirk as she readied herself.

As the Specialist began her battle, on top of the car the mercenary raced forward into her own battle as multiple Atlesian Paladin's jumped onto the top of the train and turned to look at her with their guns pointed right at her.

Annie skidded to a halt for a moment before a cruel smile appeared on her face, "Now this is more like it." She unsheathed her stolen sword and charged straight ahead as the first opened up a hailstorm of lead right onto her, the narrow path of the train prevented more than one form firing on her as she closed the distance, whirling her single blade as she dashed forward to deflect multiple bullets, experience allowing her to determine the most dangerous shots to be deflected in an instant.

A few bullets grazed her, one having the audacity to impact the fleshy part of the side of her torso, the pain was no stranger to a mercenary like her though, and she simply pushed right through it as she did a barrel roll, yanking a grenade from her belt, flicking the ring out as she did.

 _Just to get the perfect timing…_ One more dive forward and she chucked the grenade, allowing it explode right as it impacted one of the Paladin's legs. The explosion was enough to unbalance it, forcing it to halt its fire and allowing Annie to close, focusing all of her aura into her left hand, she slammed her fist right into middle of the Paladin, breaching the cockpit.

 _Hmm? So it's a manned machine?_ She tore the cover off to find a White Fang trooper sitting inside, apparently paralyzed with fear. He had just enough time to let out a terrified cry before the mercenary shut him up by slamming her sword through his chest.

He gurgled once and his whole body quivered before he went limp.

She ripped the sword out and hopped over the Paladin as it fell off the train to face the next one.

Meanwhile, Winter dueled the strange girl to a standstill, each effortlessly parrying and dodging blows with great agility before standing back to gauge each other.

 _Need to be careful, she's obviously very good at this._ Winter grit her teeth, _Don't get angry, just focus on the target and let Annie handle the train._ The girl continued smirking at her, and it was driving Winter up a wall, neither had introduced their semblances into the fight yet. Winter wanted to save it first.

 _On the other hand, am I being too cautious?_ She charged forward again, the girl let her come lashing out as Winter entered striking range. The Specialist locked one blade with the girl's own while maneuvering the other around to strike, the girl broke contact, dodged under the attack and made to swipe Winter's legs out, Winter jumped and brought both blades down simultaneously, slamming into the floor as the girl rolled away and got back up.

 _This is going nowhere, at this rate…ah fuck it,_ With the curse in her head, Winter slammed her main blade onto the floor, using her summoning glyph, she almost smirked when she saw the girl's eyes widen.

 _Yes, this is what you get for facing a Schnee criminal scum,_ Winter felt her aura well up inside her, focusing on the flock of small nevermores she had once eliminated in an SND mission, drawing them out of her and into reality.

With a hum, a flock of mini-white nevermores materialized around her, the girl seemed to frown, but did not budge as Winter sent all of them right at the girl at the same time. The Specialist watched as the summons hurtled towards the girl, wondering what she was going to do, she held her breath for a moment as they impacted, turning into steam with the sound of glass shattering, and when the steam had cleared.

The girl had vanished into thin air.

Winter was immediately on guard, checking all around her, she would not put it past the girl to have some kind of invisibility or cloaking semblance, the Specialist whipped around, expecting a sudden attack from the rear. And yet nothing of note happened.

 _What's going on? Some kind of trick?_ And then a sudden lurch caught Winter off balance and she spun around to face the front of the traincar.

 _That bitch must've detached it!_ Winter swore and ran for the front of the traincar as she could feel it slow down. There was no way in hell she was going to give up just like that, throwing caution to the wind she burst through the door, just in time to get greeted by the flaming wreckage of an Atlesian Paladin as it fell off the top of the next traincar and onto the tracks right in front of Winter. The Specialist reacted quickly, jumping off the traincar and onto a glyph, and following along until she was able to propel herself onto the deck of the next car, she turned to watch as the one she was previously in was derailed by the wreckage and crashed in the tunnel.

Simultaneously cursing and thanking the mercenary for her work in ensuring that the prototypes would be kept out of the White Fang's hands while almost wounding the Specialist in the course of action, Winter threw open the door to the next railcar and…

Like something out of a cheap B-movie horror flick, there stood a man similar to most of the troopers that Winter had faced up until now, except the mask that he wore was much more distinguished and notable compared to the other troopers, his upper arms were bare exposing large and taut muscles, plus he carried a chainsaw at his side.

Winter did not so much as flinch as he started up his weapon.

"Finally…" The man seemed to grin from behind his mask, Winter judged him to be someone special, seeing as he wielded a chainsaw compared to the other grunts, "I get to kill a Schnee today."

Winter returned with a smirk of her own as she levelled her blades at him, "You're welcome to _try_." She hissed.

They charged simultaneously, the chainsaw clashing with Winter's main blade. They broke apart and the man lunged forward swinging his chainsaw back and forth as Winter backed up to give herself space as he rapidly closed the distance again and again. Winter watched one blow go by, and at the exact moment she struck, rolling past under his horizontal blow and slashing out his legs as she did.

He cried out, and lashed out, she jumped back again as he stood up snarling.

 _His aura has been unlocked, that slash would've crippled him otherwise,_ She had aimed for his hamstrings, but clearly that was not going to work.

"You're going to pay for that!" He roared and charged again; this time Winter did not avoid it. As he brought down his chainsaw again, she parried it with one blade and struck his arm with the other blade, disarming him, and making the chainsaw clatter to the ground noisily. He howled in pain again but she did not let up, lashing out with one foot, she kicked him right in his stomach, sending him sprawling away. With a flick of a wrist, she generated a glyph underneath him as well as under herself, slamming her blades back into one and holding it in front of her, she rocketed herself forward as the man was propelled towards her.

A sickening squelch echoed through the confines of the car.

Winter did not bat an eyelid as the man was impaled right through the centre of his torso on her sword, his blood started to drip down the blood and onto the guard and handle, staining the whole thing red. He seemed to take a moment to comprehend his situation and flailed about futilely for a moment or two.

"Damn…Schnee…!" He dropped his chainsaw and tried to reach out, almost as if to grab her. Winter frowned, she exerted on her sword downwards, forcing the man to his knees, she then lifted one leg, put it to his face and ripped the sword out with a gut-wrenching sound while kicking him away.

His body fell to the ground and did not move.

Winter exhaled sharply, swiping off her sword and sheathing it, she had wasted enough time fooling around with both the girl and this man. She needed to catch up with Annie, who she presumed was already on the engine itself and probably working on stopping the train at that very moment. With that thought in mind, she quickly made her way to the front of the car and through the door open, the sounds of rapid gunfire echoed out around her, she looked up just in time to see a dark shadow pass over her and onto the roof of the next car as tracer fire arced overhead.

 _I guess we're keeping pace, alright then,_ Winter smirked as she entered the next car to be greeted by bowler hat wearing criminal, the two glared at each other as she closed the door behind her.

"Roman Torchwick." She stated flatly.

"So you're the woman who's been slicing up all of my men," He groused, "An Atlesian Specialist huh?" He tipped his hat, "Can't say I'm _completely surprised_ , how did you manage to find me?" He asked as he readied his cane.

"We have our ways," Winter smiled, a loud metallic clanking noise sounded and something seemed to drop off the roof of the car, Winter assumed that the final prototype had been defeated. Roman growled and bared his teeth, apparently reaching the same conclusion that she did.

"Seems like you two have really made a mess of things," He lifted his cane and backed away slowly, Winter however noticed one of the panels on the roof behind him opening and lowered her sword continuing to smile all the time.

"The game is up Torchwick," The Specialist cast him a smug smile, "You're not going anywhere at this rate, surrender now and I might be able to guarantee some level of fair treatment for you."

"You're off your rocker if you think I'm just going to surrender without a fight, the game isn't up until it's up Specialist, so I wouldn't count your chickens before they hatched." He tried to return the smile, but was visibly faltering.

"Oh so cliché," Winter snickered, "Are you going to obnoxious me to death?"

"Why you-" Roman was interrupted as Annie dropped down behind him, he spun around "Wha-?" The mercenary wrapped one arm around his neck and held a pistol to his head with the other.

"Nighty-night!" She grinned.

"Wait!" Winter called out, stopping the mercenary, "I could use him later, we need to focus on stopping the train." Annie shot her a look.

"You sure about that?" Annie held her pistol close to his head as Roman grabbed futilely at the arm choking him, "This piece of crap is only going to make life more difficult for you down the road, I promise this will be quick." Roman seemed to swallow nervously when she said that.

"He's going to make life _easier_ for us with the intel he provides us with." Winter commanded, "Now let him go."

"Y-yeah that's right, I'm a…I'm a…I can be a pretty useful guy hehe, you don't need to kill me now…" Roman chuckled nervously as Annie pushed the gun-barrel into his head. She seemed to reconsider her stance though, and slowly let her arm down, Roman helped her by almost literally tearing it away and backing off.

"Alright now-" He did not get much further than that, Annie lashed out, bashing him with her pistol. As he stumbled away she grabbed a hold of his collar and hurled him into the side of the railcar, he collapsed to the floor, with the very last image in his mind being a boot aimed right at his skull.

And then he was out cold.

"Was that really necessary?" Winter complained as Annie rolled her eyes. The duo made their way to the front of the train. Entering the engine room, they found the entire place thrashed like someone had gone fully-automatic with an assault rifle. The control panel and most of the levers had been destroyed and wrecked.

"What about the emergency brakes?" Annie asked as Winter pulled on a few levers futilely,

"Nothing's working! We'd better get up top!" Winter kicked the console in frustration and stormed out, they would not be stopping the train from here. They hopped up onto the roof of the engine and peered ahead, just making out some kind of large obstruction ahead, a wall that seemed to stretch from the ceiling to the floor and completely sealed off the tunnel.

"What's that?" Winter pointed out, "Some kind of barrier?"

"If I'm not wrong, that barrier was built to seal off the tunnel from the Grimm!" Annie shouted, "I don't think it'll stand a speeding train though!"

 _Dammit! We're not going to make it?!_ Winter looked at Annie with a horrified expression; they were going to burst into Vale with a horde of Grimm right behind them. The mercenary seemed to acknowledge the expression on Winter's face with a small shrug.

"Eh, shit's fucked and life sucks, what're you gonna do about it?" She seemed remarkably blasé about the possibility of a breach, "Can't have everything."

"So what do we do now?" The wall was coming up on them closer and closer.

"Brace for impact?" The way Annie said it made it sound like it was some kind of suggestion, nevertheless Winter immediately summoned a glyph to protect them as the train impacted the wall at full tilt. Despite the glyph's protection, Winter felt herself get thrown forward, her vision spun all around her as the train blasted right through the wall in a shower of debris, she hit her head on something and everything went blurry and dark.

The specialist had no idea how much time had passed when her vision slowly came into focus, she was dimly aware of a muffled siren blaring in the distance and a heavy weight on top of her that was pinning her down on her stomach. She struggled to look up through bleary eyes, a dark figure was stumbling about and seemingly shaking its head, the figure turned to her and quickly ran over, as Winter's eyes slowly readjusted, Annie came into view.

"Come on Winnie!" Annie shouted as she grabbed the chunk of concrete pinning Winter and pulled the dazed Specialist to her feet, "On your feet Specialist! The Grimm are all over us!" She tugged furiously with one hand as she held her rifle at the ready.

As she staggered to her feet slowly with her head spinning from the impact, Winter wondered how on Remnant she had ended up in this situation. It had started out as her planning out and executing a simple reconnaissance mission, and now that 'simple reconnaissance mission' had managed to escalate into a full blown crisis that was now rapidly pouring Grimm directly into the city of Vale itself. In Atlesian military parlance, such a situation was generally termed 'a clusterfuck'.

That she was going to be responsible for.

Still, there was hope as the mercenary pulled her to safety, running while screaming incoherently at random civilians, or so she thought at least, if it was going to be her 'clusterfuck' of a situation…she certainly was not going to allow it to turn into something FUBAR. That would probably entail the destruction of the entire Kingdom and the loss of between a fifth and a quarter of Remnant's human population. She hoped Disciple team had managed to get away and alert the General, that way maybe; just maybe everyone could get out of this with a minimum of life lost.

 _Then again,_ as Winter finally recovered her senses fully and turned to face the tunnel that was now a short distance away, the sun began to rise over the tops of buildings, illuminating the horde of Grimm beginning to pour into the very heart of Vale itself.

"This is going to be a long day…" She muttered, watching as the snarling, hissing, howling, baying forms overtaking the nearest civilians too close to make a run for it and tearing them to bloody pieces in a matter of seconds, screams erupted all around, chaos reigned as Annie spun on a heel and began firing into the approaching mass of teeth and claws, dropping several beowolves at a time as a dozen more took their place.

She supposed she would be lucky if she did not get court-martialled or something.

The mercenary and the specialist stood alone, the former firing and reloading with lightning speed, dropping several more Grimm as the latter separated her blades and got into a battle-ready stance. Both wore grim expressions on their faces, contrasting with the expressions of the terrified civilians running past them as the horde surged forward, crashing into buildings, rushing into different streets and wiping out everyone in their path.

 _Weiss…I'm sorry,_ Winter's last thought before an Ursa came upon her and she lashed out with both blades.

* * *

As both women engaged the Grimm in a futile battle to delay them with whatever they had, in the skies above Vale, a team of trainees could only stare in abject horror at the ground beneath them.

"What is that?" Pyrrha could only stare in muted horror as Grimm began pouring into the city from the gaping tunnel like a black swarm slowly enveloping everything in its path, from where they were high up in the sky, she could barely make out small specks getting overrun by the horde surging through the tunnel.

"Oh…god…" Ren's eyes were wide in fear as the Team watched the dark tide tear into the city block by block.

"There…there's so many people down there…" Nora whispered.

A loud snarl jolted them all out of their thoughts, they turned to find their leader, brows heavily creased, nostrils flared, lower jaw grinding against his upper jaw.

"It's happening…" He hissed as he banged his fist loudly against the bulkhead, " _It's happening again_!" He growled angrily and strode towards the cockpit in front, nearly tearing the door open with his bare hands.

"Pilot!" He yelled, "Take us down!" He ordered.

"Hang on!" The pilot replied, "We're trying to find a safe place to land!" He looked at his co-pilot, "C'mon man!"

"There!" The co-pilot shouted, "That empty space! Two hundred meters in front!"

Jaune snapped his head upwards and his eyes widened as a black shape approached in midair.

"I can't see it!" The pilot shouted back, "I can't see-"

"Look out!" Jaune cried out, too little too late.

A rather large nevermore, smaller than the one encountered at initiation yet still sizable, smashed through the glass windshield of the cockpit from the front, the co-pilot had no time to react as the Grimm's beak exploded through the windshield and impaled him right through his chest, his hand inadvertently jerked his stick back, sending the bullhead spinning wildly as Jaune was thrown backwards.

Alarms blared loudly.

Warnings were screamed.

Sparks from damaged instruments flew through the air as the bullhead fell.

"Everyone brace for impact!" The pilot shouted as the bullhead spun out of the sky as he desperately tried to wrestle it under control with the nevermore still stuck through the windshield, The rest of Team JNPR could only give terrified looks from their seated positions as Jaune felt the surface under him drop out as he tumbled to the floor with his body screaming against the inertia, he barely had the presence of mind to register Nora crying out something and Pyrrha screaming in horror.

 _Is this it? Is this how we die?_

It felt like an eternity as they spun through the air, hurtling towards the earth endlessly.

He did not even feel the impact of the bullhead slamming into the ground.

All he saw was the darkness that snapped over his vision.

* * *

 **And the Breach is on! And everyone is already dying and we've only just gotten started!**

 **And now for other things…**

 **JustCalico actually predicted correctly that the mystery woman was not only Jaune's sister, it was his eldest sister Princess Anne aka Annie Arc. The part he did get wrong though was the part where her relationship is like Jack's relationship to Miranda, I like to think it's the opposite, it's mostly grudging respect, with occasional flare-ups because Winter really can't** **stand Annie while Annie loves pushing Winter's buttons. Another way I like to see it is the classic contrast between a soldier and a warrior.**

 **Winter is the soldier, a professional, well-trained and highly dedicated woman who follows a chain of command and the orders she's given, and of course she focuses on the mission at hand and the people she commands.**

 **Annie is the warrior; rebellious princess would not even begin to describe a volatile mix of talent, adventurous spirit, apathy and noticeable lack of a moral compass, willingly taking jobs depending on payment.**

 **She is actually one of the first supporting OCs I created for this fic in my head, I really wanted to do create something apart from the usual RWBY fanfic-fare, although you could say she's my take on every, single ridiculously edgy as fuck OC who's a complete asshole to EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE, the net result is even though she's pretty good, her attitude makes her an extremely difficult person to work with. To that end, rather than rely on melee skills, her central skillset revolves around gunnery and marksmanship and in that respect, what better way to showcase gunslinging than a blend of wild-west clichés?**

 **Her name comes from Annie Oakley, the famous exhibition shooter from Buffalo Bill's Wild West.**

 **Her quick-drawing skill is the basic skill of every western-themed hero.**

 **And the style is of course inspired –though much plainer- of the sort of outfits Clint Eastwood wore in movies like The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.**

 **Of course it is a touch more realistic, she's using a captured automatic rifle rather than a lever-action one, and she uses a pistol (still an oldschool M1911 though) over a revolver for anti-personnel situations.**

 **I admit none of this would actually make a lick of sense in RWBY-canon, I don't know if it was stated somewhere the specific caliber of bullet used by Crescent Rose, Milo, and Coco's minigun, so we don't really know what it takes to perma-kill a beowolf (5.56? 7.62? Or 12.7?) . That's obviously because its way cooler to watch people go to town on monsters with awesomesauce transforming melee weapons rather than stand back and shoot them from afar. But I dunno, a gunslinger makes about 30-40% more sense to me because IRL, if you can hit your enemy but they can't, that's a MASSIVE advantage you have.**

 **But I digress, that's common sense and RWBY explicitly runs off on Rule of Cool, and Rule of Cool in this case is that 1 White Fang cell = 1 slightly unstable rogue huntress/mercenary Princess with a thing for gunnery…plus 1 beleaguered Specialist.**

 **Speaking of said beleaguered Specialist, I really wanted to demonstrate the sheer difference in level between actual professionals versus a bunch of trainees and so that's why Winter basically kicks Neo's ass with her summoning into orbit once Neo looks like she could be a problem and completely murders the White Fang lieutenant because how could Weiss screw that up you useless lesbian. Also, given who both Winter and Annie are I doubt they'd show any form of mercy to the White Fang, hence how the chapter is such a brutal bloodbath for the White Fang between the two of them.**

 **And although I've skimped out on writing omakes since the story took a more serious turn, I just wanted to get this one out because it represents an idea I had where I genuinely thought Jaune's identity could have been revealed. It takes place in an alternate scenario where the hearing developed into an actual courtroom drama.**

* * *

 **Oh so privileged**

"The prosecution calls witness Jaune Arc to the stand please." Blackburn spoke loudly.

Jaune looked at his team and inhaled sharply, they gave him encouraging looks and nods.

 _Nothing for it now._ He thought as he walked up to the stand.

"Do introduce yourself."

"My name is Jaune Arc, I'm the leader of Team JNPR, currently in my first-year at Beacon Academy." Jaune replied staunchly.

"Let's just cut the bullshit out first if we may do so," Jaune lifted an eyebrow as Blackburn flipped through a file, "His Royal Highness, Prince Jean of Armorica?"

A series of loud gasps echoed around the room as whispering erupted all over the room, Jaune did not so much as flinch but remained completely impassive.

"I don't..." Jaune paused for a moment, "I don't see how this is relevant sir."

"I believe in making sure the people who stand to testify are the people that they say they are, otherwise there might be...potential mix-ups, wouldn't you agree?"

Jaune shrugged "...Yes." He stated firmly.

"Alright, so Mr. Arc-" Blackburn was soundly cut off in an instant.

"Excuse me _sir_ ," The last word dripped with mockery, " _Jaune Arc_ is a name that my friends and teachers have the _privilege_ of calling me by," He visibly straightened up as his voice took on a commanding tone, "for you, you _will_ address me as _your highness_."

* * *

 **This is a bare-bones idea of what could have been, don't think too much about it but that's as best as I could write down what I had in mind.**

 **Well that's it, the breach will come sometime before the release of V4, hopefully i can get it out in time**

 **I sincerely appreciate all your reviews, faves and follows!**

 **P.S. which of the myriad of major and minor OCs in this fic is your favorite? I'm just curious because a bunch of you viewers have stated that you enjoy the crass, temperamental Vulcan as well as the Nyla the professional bureaucrat, so I just want to get a handle on things.**


	30. Once More Unto the Breach Part 1

**Is there any general consensus of opinion on the canon breach? I don't know because most fanfic stories don't get that far before they get dropped, and here I am trying to make up my own version, my personal opinion was that it was over just a bit too fast and that there was a noticeable lack of actual tension in the episode itself.**

 **My opinion.**

 **I mean basically once Glynda showed up the whole thing resolved itself cleanly and without any complaint, and then that was just that, the whole thing gets shelved completely, no one ever mentions it ever again and the whole thing just feels like it got swept under the carpet.**

 **So yeah, hopefully I can improve on those points in particular.**

 **Random note on V4: Following the release of additional V4 materials –and the hype run-up to the release-, I find the blow up between the whole bumblebee and eclipse shipping thing beyond hilarious. Reason being that it seriously demonstrates that many of these people have no ACTUAL fucks to give for the characters themselves and just want the characters to…well…fuck each other.**

 **Yang, Blake and Sun are WAY more than just shipping material. Yang has family issues thanks to parental abandonment, Blake has race issues and Sun has…not too sure actually but I'm sure he has issues too since issues create drama.**

 **Seriously, speaking as someone that low-key ships Lancaster/rosearc/yellow-rose/whatever you guys call RubyxJaune. The characters are so much more than just shipping material and I wish more people actually understood that, in much the same way that Aang, Katara and Zuko from _Avatar_ and Harry, Hermione and Ron from _Harry Potter_ are more than just shipping fodder (But for a while, their respective fandoms failed to understand that).**

 **Shipping aside, on to the chapter and I hope you enjoy it!**

* * *

 _Pain_ ,

 _Dizzy_

 _Can't think_

 _Pain_

 _What happened?_

 _Nevermore…_

 _Pain_

 _Have to move_

 _Have to get out_

 _Pain_

Everything was a complete blur in Jaune's vision as he struggled to wake himself, he felt as though his entire body had been paralysed somehow. His eyelids remained heavy despite his best attempts and he was forced to squeeze them shut again as the whole world seemed to spin round and round him. He tried to control his breathing even if it felt painful to do so, forcibly taking in deep gulps of air and releasing it out, slowly feeling his consciousness slip back into him, he finally forced his eyes open and tried to stagger to his feet, one collapsed under him and sent him back to the floor on his elbows.

"Move dammit!" He cursed and ground his teeth, "Move!" He reached up and grabbed onto the bulkhead for support, lifting himself up slowly, his left leg felt completely numb and he had difficulty moving it properly as he stumbled about. As his vision refocused, he found both Nora and Pyrrha pulling themselves back up onto their feet unsteadily, both trying to hold onto something to right themselves properly after their harrowing experience, but at least they were mostly conscious.

Ren was completely still.

"Ren?" Jaune called out as he staggered to the other male who was slumped on his side on the floor, "Ren!" Jaune shouted and immediately darted to the side of his comrade.

"Renny?" Nora was completely aghast and could only look wide-eyed as Jaune shook the other boy.

"C'mon wake up Ren!" Jaune picked the other boy up in his arms and shook him repeatedly, "Ren c'mon!" Jaune shouted and pressed one ear to his chest, he could hear a heartbeat still going steadily, and then a gasp.

Ren let out a painful moan and weakly opened his eyes, "Wha…appened?" He whispered and he appeared to drift back into unconsciousness.

"Stay with me Ren! Dammit he must've hit his head pretty hard, Pyrrha get the door open!" Jaune ordered.

His partner was already at work, straining under the shock and harsh landing to focus and open the door with her semblance, "Hang…on!" She gave a cry and ripped the air with one hand, and the door was forcibly torn open to the side, giving the team a way out.

"Nora pick Ren up, I'm going to check on the pi-" He was interrupted when a loud cawing sounded, he spun around, and sure enough there was the nevermore, its head still stuck through the cockpit window and still not quite dead despite the crash.

Crocea Mors was out of its sheathe in an instant and Jaune slammed the blade right through the head of the Grimm, finally silencing it. He turned his head to check the pilot, and grimaced when he found the man's head lying in a very unnatural and twisted position, it seemed like the whiplash from the crash had snapped his neck in twine. The prince-in-hiding tore his eyes away from the gruesome sight and went back to his team as Nora hefted Ren up on one shoulder, the whole lot of them stumbled out of the wreckage one by one…

And right into a warzone.

Terrified civilians ran amok as loud baying and howling could be heard a short distance away, a loud screech sounded, and the team spun around just in time to see a nevermore larger than the one that had crashed into their bullhead swooping down on them. They immediately hit the ground beneath them with a painful grunt as the shadow passed over them and an ear-piercing scream sounded, they looked back up just in time to see a young woman get snatched right off the ground in the Grimm's talons and taken up into the air. Her last cries as she was carried away were desperate a plea for someone to help her.

Pyrrha snarled, she slammed her fist into the ground and made to run in that direction, Jaune acted quickly, seizing his partner by the leg and pulling her back, Pyrrha turned to look at him with a shocked expression on her face.

"Jaune! We have to-"

"Get to cover and plan our next move." Jaune forcibly overrode her, "There's nothing we can do for her in our state, we need to-" Another loud screech, a second nevermore was diving towards them, its wings folded in, "Watch it!" He immediately jumped between it and the rest of his team, deploying his shield and raising it high as a barrage of razor-sharp feathers assailed them, he cried out as he felt one slam into his uncovered shin, bouncing off his aura as the pain sent him to his knees. He watched as several unlucky people were shredded and dropped dead in the middle of the road.

"Jaune!" Pyrrha was immediately at his side and pulled him back onto his feet.

"There!" He pointed out a rather fancy looking door leading into a rather large building, "Everyone move now!" He ordered.

"C'mon Renny!" Nora grunted as she lifted her childhood friend up and over her shoulder and went for the door as fast as she could, Jaune hobbled along with Pyrrha supporting him with one arm around his shoulders.

As they crashed through the door and fell into a heap, Jaune began to wonder just how things had turned out so badly.

* * *

 _ **The previous day,**_

 _Jaune…Jaune…Jaune…_

What? _Jaune tried to peer into the endless, swirling darkness around him._

 _Where are you going Jaune?_

What? Where am I? Who are you?! _Jaune shouted into the seemingly endless darkness_

 _We are your shining beginning…and your all-consuming end_

What the hell does that mean? _He yelled back._

 _You can't hide from us…hehehehahahaha_

What the hell is going on?

 _And then right in front of him, a figure materialized itself out of the swirling, malevolent, inky blackness. His eyes widened in shock, the figure standing before him was wearing full-plate armor, recognizable as the sort worn by Royal Legion commanders, except the chest piece was emblazoned with a pair of yellow arcs. She –it was clearly a she- had dark brown hair tied in a stiff bun and had a face that looked worn with hard battle._

 _And yet the figure had a bare grin that spread from cheek to cheek, showing all of her teeth in the most devious manner possible._

 _You can't run from us forever… The figure stepped forward, Jaune felt like he had been paralyzed, impossible to escape as the figure advanced on him with one hand outstretched, reaching for him._

No! What do you want from me?! _He screamed out as the figure reached forward and gripped his neck, the figure's grin somehow grew wider, teeth baring at Jaune right in his face._

 _She screamed incoherently, a shrill, piercing cry that seemed resonate and echo like a thousand voices speaking at the same time. Her hand crushed his neck in a vice like grip, Jaune struggled futilely as maniacal laughter echoed all around him…_

Jaune gasped loudly as his eyes snapped open. He was back in his dorm, sleeping on his back in his bed, sweat had begun gathering in little drops on his brow as he closed his eyes and reassured himself, trying to slow his heart as it threatened to explode out of his chest.

 _Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream, that's all it was._ He breathed a sigh of relief as he clenched his fists, wrapping his right fist around a hard metallic…

 _What?_ Jaune sat up straight and brought his hand up, revealing a long gleaming sword in his hands.

"Wha…? Crocea Mors? When did…?" He held it up gingerly; it was still the same as ever, still a fairly normal looking longsword. Jaune was pretty sure he had gone to bed last night _without_ the sword in hand, but on the other hand though…

"Where's the shield?" The companion shield-sheathe to the sword was missing until Jaune glanced over the edge of his bed; there it was on the floor right beside his bed. Jaune quickly picked it up and sheathed the sword in one swift movement and shoved the weapon right under his bed, it would not do to have the rest of his Team wake up and wonder why his weapon was out of his locker and in the dorm. He had never found out what exactly it was that caused its apparent shape to shift that night at the docks, originally chalking it up to some strange magical thing that he should leave alone for the moment until a later time. He had wanted to contact Marina to see if she could find out more but he always kept forgetting and putting it off due to more pressing concerns.

He looked at the time, 7.00 a.m., plenty of time to get ready, have breakfast and then proceed to classes. He got out of bed and fetched his uniform from the closet, placing it on the bed while he went to the bathroom to clean himself up, shaking his head as he thought about that dream. That was no memory; there was no battle or his ancestor to show, just some strange woman who was wearing his family symbol, who apparently wanted to kill him.

He leaned over the sink and splashed water onto his face, closing his eyes and revelling in the cooling liquid on his face.

 _Why is this happening? Why now? What the hell is happening to me?_ He exhaled sharply and looked into the mirror.

 _Or maybe it really is just a nightmare and I'm completely overthinking everything._ The person staring back at him inhaled and exhaled calmly, _Right, just another bad dream,_ Jaune flicked his hands off and shook his head to clear out some of the last bits of tiredness as he exited the bathroom and began getting ready.

 _ **Later,**_

Breakfast was a somewhat sordid affair; neither of the teams was really interested in talking to one another even as they all sat at their usual place right outside the breakfast stall. Ren and Yang were barely communicating like they usually did while cooking and even Nora seemed to have lost a bit of the upbeat cheer as she took orders from the other students. Everyone else was just rather quiet and seemed to prefer playing with their food a little bit more often than usual.

Ruby poked at her mashed potatoes

Weiss stirred her teaspoon pointlessly

Blake was taking very small bites out of her tuna sandwich

And as for Jaune and Pyrrha?

Well the latter constantly stole short, abrupt glances at the former who was doing his best to simply pay attention to his own food and not think too hard about _anything_ –least of all the prospect of his relationship with his partner-, the whole nightmare had given him a queasy feeling in his stomach and he was not feeling especially well enough to take more than a bite or two out of the sandwiches in front of him. The whole thing did not go unnoticed by the other three who were also seated at the table.

"Hey." Weiss whispered quietly to Ruby, "Is something going on between those two?"

"I dunno," Ruby whispered back, "I thought they had it sorted out last night…"

"Seems not."

Blake for her part merely kept quiet.

"Food." Yang said blandly as she placed several plates down on the table together with Ren and they all sat down to breakfast. It was a rather quiet breakfast that the two teams shared together; the only words anyone really spoke were polite requests to pass various condiments, the only real interaction being Nora shooting dark looks at Ruby every now and then which the reaper did her best to ignore. This state of affairs carried on for much of the rest of the day, even as they continued to hang out together seemingly more out of habit –and JNPR's need to watch over their runaway friends- than any actual desire to spend more time together.

Before long though, it was time for them to pick their first missions and get ready for them accordingly, some would be leaving immediately, evidenced by the fact that they had already packed their backpacks when they entered the auditorium. Team RWBY had been absent from that bit, preferring to hole up in their dormitory room since they had been barred from going on missions until further notice and therefore, considered it pointless to attend the function. Still Jaune did not think they were missing out on much besides the one speech from the headmaster explaining how they would shadowing a professional in the course of their work during aforementioned mission.

"So…" Jaune began as they flicked through the list of available missions, "Anything you guys have an eye for in particular?" He asked as he randomly scrolled through the list.

"Hmm, let me see leader!" Nora nudged him to the side as she began scrolling through herself, Jaune ran through the type of missions in his mind.

 _Search and Rescue aka SAR, where we look for people in trouble. Search and Destroy aka SND where we aim to destroy pockets of Grimm infestation. Perimeter Defence where we help with fortification works. Village Security, where we assist a non-aligned village with Grimm problems. Bounty where we try to be law enforcers and lastly Escort where we help people move through infested areas._ He recited from memory.

 _Come to think of it the Royal Legion does much the same thing, except they don't get to choose the way hunters do._ His thoughts were interrupted by another nudge, and he found Nora looking back at him with her finger stabbed on a specific line selection on the board.

"This one leader!" She smiled; Jaune leaned forward to look at it.

"Village Security huh? Let's see…" He slowly read the mission description out, "The sheriff of a recently built settlement roughly ten miles Southwest of Vale is requesting assistance in fighting off a recent spate of Grimm incursions into the village perimeter that has resulted in multiple casualties dead and wounded…start time…tomorrow?" He shrugged and looked around at the rest of his team, "We all in agreement?" He received excited nodding from Nora and smiles from both Pyrrha and Ren.

"Alright then," He selected the mission and entered their team name into the box, a moment later and the result was confirmed, a beeping sound emitted from their scrolls as they checked it.

"Ok, looks like its marked out on our scrolls, I'm curious though," Jaune pocketed his scroll again, "Why would an apparent emergency like needing help with Grimm incursions wait for just a day?" He asked the rest of his team, none of whom had an answer to give.

"That's likely because there has likely been a delay in getting and designating the necessary transport for you to get to your mission Mr. Arc." Headmaster Ozpin's voice suddenly rang out and made all of them jump simultaneously.

"Headmaster." Jaune greeted as the Headmaster leaned over to look at the mission they had selected.

"Hmm, looks like _another settlement needs our help_ , and I guess it has already been marked out on your scrolls?" He asked.

"Yes professor," Pyrrha showed her scroll, a map with a marker that was quite some ways out of Vale.

"I see," He nodded in response, "well then good luck to the lot of you, remember to stay close and keep safe. Here in Beacon Academy you can make mistakes and recover from there under the watchful eyes of the faculty, but out there in the wilderness you only have each other to rely upon for support, if at any point in time the sheriff decides that you should be taken off the field and returned, it will be done." Ozpin explained.

"Hey headmaster what'll happen to Team RWBY since we're not around to watch them and all?" Nora asked.

Ozpin furrowed his brow and took a sip from his signature cup of coffee, "Professor Goodwitch had originally been of the opinion that the best way for us to deal with it would have been to confine them to their dorm for the entirety of the time that you would be on the mission. Fortunately for Team RWBY I _amended_ their sentence to being confined to Beacon until such time as their watchers would have returned." There was a twinkle in his eye as he said it.

"Hey Jaune!" A voice called out and all of them turned to find Sun approaching with the rest of his team right behind him, "Fancy seeing you here." He held out one fist.

"Sun." Jaune acknowledged and completed the fist bump, "They let you out of confinement?" He looked at the headmaster for an explanation.

"Haven Academy's deputy headmistress was insistent that she be allowed to deal with them personally as she saw fit. An agreement was therefore made between the councils of both Vale and Mistral for Mr. Wukong and Mr. Vasilias to be penalised according to Haven's own wishes for their involvement in the highway incident, now I cannot say what transpired during the… _discussion_ as it were..." Ozpin trailed off, still remembering how amused he had been to watch all the entire team's balls shrink as they were given a vicious tongue-lashing from the Haven faculty for their missteps.

The headmaster glanced to the side and noted the fearful looks on Team SSSN's faces.

"But I think I'll let Mr. Wukong speak for himself and his team." He began backing away slowly and saluted with coffee cup in hand, "And now I must be off, good luck to the both of you, the wilderness is an unforgiving place to be, watch each other's backs and you should be fine." And then just like that, the headmaster was gone.

"Hey are you alright?" Jaune asked as Sun watched the headmaster go away nervously, when the monkey Faunus did not respond Jaune rapped his knuckles on his shoulder, "Sun!" He called out.

"Huh? What? Oh right! Ah…hehe…yeah I'm good." Sun chuckled nervously as he shot a look at Neptune who merely shrugged. Behind them Sage and Scarlet could only sigh and give looks of resignation.

"So where are you guys headed?" Nora suddenly asked, "We've got a mission out shadowing a sheriff of a village!" She said excitedly.

"It's tomorrow though." Ren noted.

"Oh ho I'm glad you asked!" Neptune grinned widely, "The lot of us are shadowing a crime-specialist in the inner city doing detective stuff, and we even get junior badges while doing so!"

"That sounds interesting." Jaune returned the smile and nodded.

"Yeah it is," Sun folded his arms across his chest and nodded, "We're going to go get the criminals _properly_ this time and we're going to do it the right way…and not run around like a bunch of headless chickens like last time." He let his arms fall to the side and sighed.

"Hey don't look so sad," Jaune tried to encourage him, "I'm sure you'll get through it just fine."

"You think so?" Sun had a hopeful look on his face, but before Jaune could respond several loud cries attracted the attention of the two teams. Both simultaneously turned to the side where several students were rushing out of the auditorium, a loud murmuring had erupted from them as the two teams exchanged a glance, "Wonder what they're so happy about…" Sun muttered as he walked to the exit and looked around it with JNPR trailing behind him.

"It's Team CFVY." Jaune noted with wide-eyes as he watched the second year team trudge through the hallway that ran past the doors to the auditorium.

"They're a whole week late." Pyrrha raised her eyebrows as she watched them, "I wonder what happened?" She asked out loud. The second-year team looked completely bushed and beyond exhausted as they pushed through a small crowd of students around them.

"Ms. Adel?" Jaune called out, as the person in question walked by.

The leader of Team CFVY, Coco Adel stopped mid-step and lowered her sunglasses, she cracked a thin smile at him, "Oh hey it's the resident knight-in-shining-armour, and how've you been?"

Jaune shrugged, "I guess I'm doing pretty well," He replied, "But you don't look so good either."

"Oh this?" Coco gestured to herself and the rest of her team, "Eh…it was…kinda crappy and there were… _a lot of Grimm_ but…" She pushed out her lower lip, "Well you're being accompanied by a professional so it's all good, just focus on the mission and watch each other's backs and you'll be fine." She answered, she wore a rather forbidding look on her face as she began moving away, "See you around, good luck." She waved behind her as the rest of her team filed past, with Jaune and Velvet exchanging a nod of acknowledgement.

Jaune lifted both eyebrows and waved as Yatsuhashi walked by, the large man stopped and smirked, holding out a hand, "Does the forge run on coal or alcohol?"

Jaune returned the smirk and shook his hand, "Depends on whether or not Vulcan's drunk all the alcohol." He snickered; Yatsuhashi nodded in turn and followed the rest of his team as they went away.

"Since when were you close to Yatsuhashi Jaune?" Pyrrha asked with one raised eyebrow.

"Yeah well…" Jaune scratched his head, "It was something that happened over summer break."

"Oh really?" Pyrrha folded her arms and shot him a look, "So are you going to tell me now what else you were up to over summer break?" She did not look happy at all.

"Whoa wait you told her?" Nora cocked her head to one side, looking surprisingly amused at the new information, "I thought we'd all forgotten about that already." Jaune could not tell if she was being sarcastic.

"You know how Vulcan gets with weapons? She tried to set up this club of people that didn't use fancy transforming weapons, since there was only me and Yatsuhashi it didn't quite work out, but we did get to know each other a little." Jaune explained brusquely.

"And you both knew all of this?" Pyrrha was astounded as she looked between Ren and Nora, both of whom looked more than a little guilty, "So I was the only one who went back home for summer break?" Pyrrha did not look especially happy with what she had just found out, realising that she had been the only member of their team absent for the whole of summer break.

* * *

 _Damn, I can't believe all that was only yesterday, was that really only yesterday?_ Jaune thought as he hauled himself to his feet with Pyrrha's help. All around them various patrons and uniformed workers were staring at the lot of them with uncertainty in their eyes, outside the terrified cries of running civilians were muffled through the door.

The place appeared to be some sort of club, given that there was what appeared to be a large open dance floor with multiple sitting areas all around and a large bar being manned by several workers. Giving a quick glance over the entire area he opened his mouth, "Who's in charge of this establishment?" He yelled out as Nora led Ren to sit down with his back against the wall.

"I am." A very tall and burly man with a full beard and glasses walked up to him, "What's going on outside? Why is the alarm blaring?" He asked a little timidly.

"Everyone listen to me!" Jaune raised his voice loudly, "The Grimm are in Vale and they're coming here," Jaune took note of the horror that descended upon the faces of both the patrons and the workers, he looked directly at the man, who had clearly gone into shock, Jaune grabbed onto his clothing and shook him roughly, "Do you have a cellar? Or a basement?" He asked frantically.

"Yes of course, wha-" He confirmed just as Jaune swiftly interrupted him.

"Ok look, I need you to take all of your patrons and get them downstairs, bring in anyone else from outside that you can fit in" Jaune started gesturing back and forth with one hands, "The Grimm are about to run rampant outside, so barricade _all_ of the openings with everything you have, be prepared for a fight and _don't come out_ until its safe, you got that?"

The man looked rather dazed from the news and seemed to turn to the side slowly with one hand pressed into his forehead.

"Hey!" Jaune pushed his shoulder back to get his attention and so that the man could look him in the eyes directly, "Look at me! Hey _look at me_!" The prince-in-hiding shouted, as the man looked back with fear in his eyes, "I _need you_ to do this for me ok? Get all of your men and patrons someplace safe, I'll come back and tell you when the area is secure alright?"

"Ok," The man nodded as he seemed to finally find his nerve, "Ok!" He turned away and started barking orders, "You two open up the cellars and the basement!" He pointed at a pair, "Get everyone inside, grab all the weapons we have and make sure everyone is armed and ready, Miltia! Melanie!" He gestured to a pair of girls dressed in red and white respectively standing at the side, "Keep watch outside and don't let any Grimm get near, everyone else start piling up tables and chairs!" Everyone began moving around as fast as possible, club workers started pushing tables and chairs with the help of some of the patrons while others began exiting the doors at the side.

"Oh…Oh _fuck_!" Jaune spun around as Ren suddenly shot out of his position against the wall and dashed to a corner and threw up violently.

"Ren!" Nora rushed over to help her heaving friend, "What's wrong?"

"A pretty bad concussion can do that to you." Jaune explained, and then he nearly collapsed when a sharp pain went through his left thigh, he quickly caught himself before he did as Pyrrha rushed over.

"Jaune!" She cried out as she helped him to a chair at the side, "Where are you hurt?" She asked as he massaged his thigh.

"I…I don't think I broke anything," He gasped out, "It's probably just a sprain from landing too hard, at least I hope so…" He trailed off and looked up at her, seeing the anxious look in her eyes, "we need to get more help, there's no way we can handle this on our own…" He fumbled in his pocket for his scroll, "Need to contact whoever we can." He began dialling Ruby's scroll number.

It took only a moment to connect, and before Jaune could speak Ruby was already yelling, "Jaune! Where are you?! What's going on?" She asked frantically.

"There's Grimm in the city itself!" Jaune started talking, "I don't know where they came from but they're pouring in! Our bullhead just got knocked out of the sky by a nevermore, Ren took a bad hit and I'm not doing too well myself." His mouth was moving faster than he could think as he spat out as much information as possible.

"Oh…oh no…" Fear was evidently rising in Ruby's voice, and then Jaune heard garbled shouting on the other end of the scroll, he assumed that Ruby was talking to the rest of her team, her voice shortly was back on, "Where are you now? We'll try to get to you ASAP!" She was clearly in a panic.

"Some club, I'm not entirely sure what the name is…" He looked up from the scroll and yelled out, "Hey what's the name of this establishment?!"

"Hei's Nightlife Knocks!" Someone yelled back.

"Hei's Nightlife Knocks!" Jaune repeated back into the scroll, there were even more excited garbled noises in the background in response.

"Err…" Ruby sounded rather uncertain, "It sounds like the sort of place that Yang might know about! Hang on I need to get to her! You just stay put ok?"

"No," Jaune shook his head even though Ruby could not see it, "We're going to be surrounded pretty soon and we'll end up being overrun if we stay in one spot, I'm going to try to move in the direction of Beacon, can you lock onto our location from your scroll and use that?" He asked.

"I…lemme see…err…uhm…how do you…?" There was a bit more noise on the other end, "Erm…maybe Weiss knows how to, so get moving and we'll be right there before you know it!"

"Gee I hope so," Jaune looked over the rest of his team and the club, even though Ren was the one who had hit his head bad, even Jaune was feeling a little light headed, whether from the tension or the crash he was not so sure himself, and then something occured to him, "Wait Ruby, are you with your team now?"

"Eh, not quite, but look...Jaune?," Ruby's voice came back over the scroll.

"Yeah?"

"Stay safe ok?" Her voice was uncharacteristically full of concern, "Don't die on me now; I'd hate to have to answer to your family." Even though the prince-in-hiding swore he could almost see the smirk on Ruby's face through the scroll, there was a strong undertone of distress in the reaper's voice.

Jaune contemplated this for a moment before responding, "I won't die, just be quick alright? See you in a few.," He said softly before silencing the connection but keeping it open, "Ok, now…" He tried to get up but was forced back down form the pain in his thigh.

The white and red pair of girls walked up to him, "If you're hurt you should take cover with the other patrons," The white one said, "We can handle ourselves pretty well."

"Ah, thanks but no thanks," Jaune waved them off, "It'd look really stupid if a bunch of hunters took cover while we left you to do all the work." He shakily stood up, the pain was still there but he could feel it dissipating slowly under his aura's healing.

"Don't be stupid." Pyrrha shot the red one an ugly look as she said that with her arms folded, "If you go out there, you're only going to get yourself killed, in your state you'd be more trouble in front than at the back." She stated curtly.

"Yeah?" Jaune laughed and nodded his head, "Well I can't say I disagree, but…" He cast his eyes downward, "That's not what I'm here for." He said when he looked back up, "So you two stay here and keep the others safe, I'm going back out with my team. At the very least we can try and draw the Grimm's attention off of you while you take cover." He walked over to Ren who had slumped down against the wall again, "Ren!" He knelt down and gripped the latter's shoulder tightly as the martial artist leaned back and grimaced, pressing one hand into his forehead, "You think you're good to move?"

At this Ren opened his eyes and shot Jaune a determined look as he bared his teeth, "Yes." He stated firmly.

"Ok, but don't push yourself alright? I'm not letting you die on me." Jaune smiled and then turned to the other two members of his team, "Pyrrha, Nora, you two will stick together, since we're both a little out of it, I'll take care of Ren for the duration." The two nodded grimly as they readied their weapons.

"What's the plan leader?" Nora set her face straight.

Jaune sniffed and looked around as the workers hustled several people into the club as they ran in from the outside, "We can't fight this on our own; we need to find and linkup with any other hunters in the area, after that we need to form…" He suddenly found himself short of breath, "We need to form a line of resistance around the breach and block the Grimm from going any further, once more reinforcements arrive then we can start to push the Grimm back." Jaune inhaled sharply, "Ok, let's take the backdoor so we don't crowd out the front, we'll move only as fast as Ren can, you all with me?"

"We're with you all the way Jaune." Pyrrha nodded.

"Alright then," Jaune took another breath, "Ok, let's go." And then he stood up and pulled Ren up with the latter's arm around his shoulder, Ren grunted in pain but nodded in affirmation when Jaune looked at him with a concerned expression, readying stormflower in both of his hands, "We'd better get moving. Hey where's the backdoor?" He asked the girl dressed in red.

She sighed in response and turned to the one in white, "Get up front first, I'll show them the way." The one in white nodded and quickly moved away as the girl dressed in red spun on a heel and began walking away, the wounded Team JNPR hurried along, keeping pace with her as best as they could as they exited the main room and entered a long, dimly lit corridor with a door marked with an exit sign on the far end, "It's just at the end over there." She stopped and stood to one side to give way to the Team, Jaune stopped as well as smiled at her.

"Thanks for the help, we owe you-" He stopped when she held up one hand.

"You don't owe us anything; if we all get out of this if our lives I think it'll be a free round of drinks for everyone." She turned and began walking away.

Jaune snorted, "I'll be looking forward to that, I'm Jaune Arc by the way." Nearly forgetting to introduce himself at least, Jaune quickly threw his name out.

"Then good luck and good hunting out there Jaune; I'm Miltia." She said over her shoulder, with that said they parted ways, Miltia heading back to the club and Jaune continuing forward.

"Pyrrha, Nora keep in front and clear the way out, I will stay to protect Ren. Ren, you provide supporting fire when you can, we stick to the sidewalk so we don't get surrounded on all sides, I don't want anyone taking any unnecessary risks ok? Stay close and we're all going to get through this, I'll make sure of that." They all nodded with looks of determination on their faces, "Ok, here goes nothing." Jaune sucked in a lungful of air and let it out sharply, "Pyrrha open the door and let's go." Pyrrha nodded, she gripped the door handle tightly and flung it open.

And immediately screams filled their ears as they moved out into an alleyway, civilians ran amok in front of them; a small nevermore swooped down and attacked a man who cried out in fear as it lashed out with its talons. Acting on instinct, Pyrrha immediately flipped Milo into its rifle mode and blasted it out of the air as the man fell to the ground.

"Get to cover!" She waved her hand at him, "It's not safe out here!" She shouted as he scrambled away, the whole team moved forward just in time to see several beowolves coming right at them from down the road where they were chasing numerous men and women, overhead more nevermores swept across the sky, their loud shrieks intermingling with the screaming below. With so many Grimm about, many people were not so lucky as they were overtaken and torn apart in moments.

Jaune gnashed his teeth as his team levelled their weapons at the approaching wave.

 _ **Beacon Academy,**_

When Ruby had first gotten the call from Jaune while lying in her bunk, she had no idea what to think, the alarm had gone off not too long ago but since all four of them had been confined to the Academy for the duration of Team JNPR's mission, they had sorta separated to do their own things out of boredom and it resulted in a real hassle for Ruby to have to seek out all three of them and bring them back together to plan their next move. Fortunately it helped in these times to have a semblance capable of boosting your own speed to a level where everything was a blur, it also helped that her teammates were not generally hard to find given their habits.

"Ruby? What're you-?" Weiss was dragged out of the library at speed with paper flying everywhere.

"Huh? Ruby-?"Blake was thrown out of the dining hall with a half-eaten tuna sandwich hanging from her mouth.

"Hey sis, what-?" Yang was pulled out of the training room and before long; all four of them were suited up with their weapons, ready to head out into Vale to save their comrades. The rest of Beacon was in utter chaos as students milled about, unsure of what they ought to be doing at that point in time.

An announcement went up over the intercom, "All students currently in Beacon are to report to the landing pad immediately! A level three breach event has occurred! Please form up into your teams and await further instructions!"

"We should go." Blake noted as they all began running from the locker rooms to the landing pads as fast as they could.

"Weiss can you do it?" Ruby asked.

"Hang on!" Weiss continued fiddling with Ruby's scroll as she ran, "I think I've almost…yes! Ok!" She gave a grim smile of victory as Team JNPR's icons popped up on their scroll screens, "Oh…that's not good…" She swallowed hard as she looked their aura levels on the screen. Pyrrha and Nora still had respectable levels in the green, but Jaune's was in the yellow and Ren was at the red threshold.

"We need to hurry." Ruby hissed below her breath, even if she failed at being a hero, there was absolutely no way in hell that she was going to fail in her charge to protect his highness, she had given her word to him herself after all. They soon found themselves at the landing pad in no time flat, they expected to join with a host of other students from all over Remnant, ready to take the fight to the Grimm and defend Vale with all that they had and push the Grimm back into the wilderness where they belonged.

Rather than the mass of students though, they were surprised to find what looked like a few dozen students in the area with no bullheads around.

"What the hell?" Yang looked back and forth, "Is this everyone?" She asked.

"Maybe we should go straight to the hanger bay," Weiss suggested, "It might be faster if-"

"Team RWBY!" A harsh, stern and familiar voice called out to them, making them all jump.

"Professor Goodwitch!" Ruby called back, "Where's everyone else?" she asked as the woman strode up to them, her face set in a forbidding expression.

"The attack couldn't have come at a worst time," She growled, "Most of the student teams deployed out yesterday with accompanying hunters, right now we're scraping the barrel for everyone we can find…" She rubbed her forehead ruefully.

"Professor, JNPR is in trouble, they called to tell us their bullhead went down when the Grimm breached the city! They're stuck somewhere in Vale and we need to get to them!" Ruby said urgently.

The Professor ground her teeth at that piece of information and looked up at the sky, "Nevermore flocks are encroaching on the borders, flight at this point is becoming increasingly risky so going straight into the frontline like that is dangerous, I can't possibly let you go-"

"There's no time Professor!" Ruby suddenly started shouting, catching both her team and the professor off guard, "Team JNPR is wounded! _Jaune_ is in imminent danger! _We have to go now_!" She forcibly emphasized the last phrase, "You of all people should know why we have to."

Weiss titled her head and shot Ruby a strange look.

Glynda was so completely taken aback by the sudden show of force from the normally rather meek reaper that she could only stare back in response.

 _But then again,_ She growled under her breath, _I should know better, this is the prince we are talking about after all, and she was designated as his protector after the docks incident._ Despite the young trainee huntress's zeal though, Glynda knew that zeal was not nearly enough to get them through the crisis.

"Even that will depend on the pilots." She would rather not have dropped that bomb on them so quickly, seeing the confused expressions on their faces, "If the pilots deem it too risky, they may choose to drop you off at a further destination than-"

"That's fine." Ruby answered, "If the pilots can't go all the way then they can take us as close as possible and we'll make the rest of it on foot," Determination oozed from her very being, there was no way she was going to take no for an answer, "So now we just need a pilot and some bullheads right?"

Glynda was still somewhat in shock at the sudden outburst from the normally quiet, meek and unassuming reaper who usually just tried to keep her head down in the Academy and not draw attention to herself the way her elder sister did. Still on some level the professor had to admit she was right, if the prince was in such a level of imminent danger, than he would need help as fast as possible, and who better to help him than the same people that were designated all of that time ago to be his protectors?

She gave a great sigh, "The bullheads should be arriving shortly, the Grimm coming through the breach are spreading quickly so we'll be stretched thin dealing with them, General Ironwood is doing his best to get his forces to the fight, but he's going to need time before he can fully deploy the Atlesian Military."

"Then we'll buy him that time and save our friends too." Ruby gripped Crescent Rose at her side tightly.

Glynda narrowed her eyes, "Whatever happens out there I implore you not to act rashly again Ms. Rose." She straightened her glasses, "This situation will not be easily resolved with mere gung-ho heroics, _do not disappoint me again_." That last phrase made the air rather tense and the other three members of Team RWBY were visibly nervous about their future prospects, but that seemed to make their leader all the more determined.

"We won't professor." Ruby answered firmly.

"I should hope not," Glynda shook her head, "I need to stay behind to coordinate and plan with the Atlesian Military first so I and the other professors cannot join you on the field immediately and…ah here they come." She raised her head and nodded behind the team. They turned to find several bullheads approaching the landing pad.

"Ok, everyone listen up!" Glynda began walking to the edge of the landing pad in front of all the other students, "Time is short and we need to move fast! Other teams and hunters are being called back from the field as we speak but they will take time to arrive, the Atlesian Fleet is also gearing up but until they arrive, you lot are the only people we have standing between the city and the Grimm." She barked out loudly as the bullheads began landing behind her.

"Your primary purpose in this fight will be to secure and hold key positions and installations and guard them against Grimm attacks until reinforcements can arrive, each team will have designated sectors and responsibilities to defend, these will be uploaded to your scrolls as you fly down to the city. Once you're down in the city immediately move to your objectives and lock them down as best as you can, once you've done so hold your position and await further updates in the field, any questions?" She ordered.

"Professor what about civilians?" One student apparently from Haven raised his hand and asked.

"Focus on your objectives first," The professor said tersely, "Do what you can to protect the citizens, but you must ensure that your responsibilities have been fulfilled first…" Glynda trailed off uncertainly, "I won't lie to any of you, most of you will likely be on your own with only yourselves, your wits and whatever you can find in the field. I know this is not how many of you envisioned your first time in the field would go, but I want you all to treat this as your first mission and take it seriously, because there will be _no further support_ –I repeat, no further support- until additional forces arrive to relieve you." Several students were exchanging very uncertain glances at that, "That is all I have to say, stay safe, watch each other's backs, come back safely, _good luck and good hunting_!"

That was all there was to it apparently, it seemed simple enough to the students standing before the landing pad. Team RWBY was on the first bullhead that landed and was the first team out of the Academy and flying down to Vale.

"Where are they now?" Blake asked as Weiss watched the scroll intently.

"They're moving slowly alright, and their aura levels have been stable so far so I think they're probably ok, I'd feel a lot better once we were down there ourselves though." Weiss sniffed, "I'll go talk to the pilot and ask if he can get us down to that position." She quickly moved to the cockpit.

"C'mon!" Yang was being incredibly jumpy, "Let's get down there and bust some heads already, this could be our chance to finally prove ourselves and get our privileges back." She cracked her knuckles and grinned widely.

Blake shook her head, "Yang our friends are currently in mortal danger, can we at least leave the speculating until we make sure they're safe." She had a mildly disgusted look on her face.

"Hey I just wanna see some action for once," Yang responded, "I've been cooped up in Beacon for so long that I don't think I remember what the city looks like anymore, besides even Ruby looks like she's itching for a fight." Yang jerked her thumb to her sister who was sitting down at one side with her hood over her head, "In fact she's so hungry for a fight she even talked down to Professor Goodwitch, man that was one hell of a line sis." Yang continued talking while Blake looked between the two, " _There's no time Professor! We have to go now!"_ Yang imitated badly.

"Holy crap!" Ruby suddenly cried out and tugged her hood over her head, her face red with embarrassment.

"Sis? What's wrong?!" Yang was immediately at Ruby's side as the reaper sat down slowly on one side of the bullhead.

"I can't believe it…I just…" She looked up at Yang as her body trembled, "I just _shouted_ at Professor Goodwitch!" She cried out, "Holy crap we're so in for it when this is over!" She bunched up as Yang shot her a disbelieving look.

"Wait a minute, so were you just faking it the whole time?" Yang narrowed her eyes, "C'mon Ruby! I thought that was pretty cool."

"Huh? But-"

"Ok!" Weiss re-entered the main compartment and handed the scroll back to Ruby, "If JNPR continues moving at the current rate…" She explained as she brought up a map on her own scroll, "Then they should arrive at this intersection with the next fifteen or so minutes, the pilot told me that initial reports indicate the immediate airspace has been completely overrun and it's too dangerous to try a direct drop, so…" She began shifting the map away, "They'll have to drop us a distance away in this small field here," She marked it out, "and we'll make it to JNPR on foot as fast as we can from there." She explained.

"Ok, erm…" Ruby wracked her brains for a plan, "Alright," She snapped her fingers, "Ren and Jaune are hurt, so once we link up with them we need to pull them off the line and get them somewhere safe so that they can rest and recover their strength, once we do that let's call the professor and update her on our status, from there we'll see where she needs us to go and move accordingly." The others nodded in agreement.

"Alright!" Ruby hopped off her seat, "Let's kick some ass team!" She pumped her fist.

As the bullheads were dispatched out of the Academy with nervous trainees filling them on their way to the city, they began to receive their objectives on their scrolls. All of them were widely varied and in many different parts of the city all located near the breach, power stations and electric substations, subway stations, government buildings and places of interest, there were a lot of them. As these updates filtered into the teams heading into the city, their leaders began to plan accordingly with their teams for the fights they would face and how they would carry out their missions, none of the teams had attached professionals with them since all of them were slated to go out on later missions, but that would not stop them from fulfilling their duty.

They would defend the city or die trying.

 _ **Elsewhere in Vale,**_

As all available students began deploying from Beacon Academy into the city, barely a kilometer from the epicenter of the Breach, a duo of fighters continued their erstwhile fighting retreat.

Two women, one dressed in black and the other in military fatigues ran and jumped across the rooftops of apartment buildings heading towards the heart of the city of Vale itself. Down on the streets below them, a wave of Grimm surged forward, tearing into the city's helpless inhabitants as they fled haphazardly through the streets and alleyways. The mercenary princess cursed when she heard a loud squawk from behind her, reacting quickly she dropped down onto her back and fired straight into the Nevermore that was aiming to attack her with its talons, the Grimm cried out and fell out of the sky, crashing into the side of a rooftop before tumbling to the street below.

At the same time, a King Taijitu came up along the side trying to get at the two; the Specialist reacted quickly as it lunged forward, jumping up as one head snapped ferociously at where she had just been a moment ago and landing right on top of it, slamming her blades into its head as it jerked back with a loud hiss of pain and swung its head from side to side trying to get Winter off of it, the Specialist held fast, driving her blades deeper as its other head reared up and prepared to strike at Winter. Right at that moment, Winter caught notice of it as she was swung back to face it, as the other head shot forward she created a glyph right below her and shot upwards and off the other head, the second head's mouth slammed onto the first head and crushed it as Winter dropped out of the sky and decapitated the second head, landing on a glyph that launched her back onto the rooftop.

"That's one down." She huffed, having been fighting without letup for hours now, she had to start conserving her aura, even if she could dodge and avoid hits, it was still draining on her to repeatedly use her semblance. She immediately thumbed the button on her mic and spoke into it, "This is Specialist Frost calling any available unit on this net, please respond over!" She got nothing back but faint static, she had already been trying since the start of the breach but with no luck, communications seemed to be down and she could not reach anyone.

" _Goddamit!"_ She swore angrily and spun around just in time to see her companion nail a nevermore through its eyes, the creature lost its balance and plummeted out of the sky, crashing into the side of a building and crushing an ursa as it landed on the street below. Annie switched targets and continued hammering away as the streets filled with Grimm rushing onward into the city. Several Grimm tried to scale the sides of buildings to reach the duo, Winter hacked the arm off of a beowolf as it reached up, sending it right back to the ground and taking the ones behind it as it went. One leapt up right in front of Winter and charged at her, as it lunged at her Winter spun to the side and planted both blades firmly into its body, pinning it down as she ripped them out and swiftly decapitated the Grimm.

"Keep going!" Annie shouted as the two continued their dash across the city.

Winter stuck her hand into her pocket and fished out her scroll; with her radio down she was left to try more ordinary forms of communication, in this case dialing General Ironwood herself, she took a moment to survey the area around her as she ran. Most of the civilians had already been completely overrun and killed, the lucky ones barely managing to take cover in buildings, probably barricading themselves in and hiding out. She turned her head back to watch a burst of fire nail another nevermore.

"Get us some goddamn support Winter!" Annie yelled, "I'm almost out of ammunition! Vale is going to fall at this rate!" She jammed another magazine into her rifle and continued firing as she ran.

" _What the hell do you think I'm trying to do Princess_?!" Winter screamed back as the scroll chose this moment to talk back to her, "The person you are connecting to is not available," Her scroll chimed at her, "Your connection has been timed out, please try again later." It beeped.

"Timeout?!" Winter yelled at the scroll futilely as she held it in front of her, "Don't time me out you goddamn machine! I _need help_ you stupid piece of trash!" She cursed frantically as she dialed the number back in.

"Whoa! You kiss your mother with that mouth Winnie?" Annie called out as several more Grimm died to her hyper-accurate gunnery.

"Shut up damn mercenary!" Once again she got the same message, pocketing her scroll with a snarl, she continued onwards, cutting down any Grimm foolish enough to try to climb up the building to attack the specialist on high ground.

How long had they been on the run fighting like this? Killing one Grimm just so that a dozen more could take its place, helpless to watch as the city was swarmed over, its defenseless citizens torn to bloody pieces before their eyes. Neither Winter nor Annie were strangers to watching people die, and yet the scale and magnitude of death that could be upon them if no help came soon would dwarf anything seen in years on Remnant. Their only hope was that Disciple team had gotten out and had alerted the rest of the military, Winter prayed that that was the reason why the good General's line was out and not some other reason of less-than-vital-importance.

Gunfire in the distance caught their attention and their heads swiveled around to listen for it.

"It's coming from that side!" Annie pointed in the distance beyond the opposite end of apartments, "C'mon Winnie! Do that weird symbol thing already and let's go!" She urged.

"Don't order me around!" Winter growled as she grabbed Annie's shoulder and launched themselves off the roof, through the air and landing hard on the other rooftop, they crossed over to the other side and continued on their way, cutting and blasting Grimm as they went. They were surprised when they found themselves overlooking a circular intersection with five roads leading into and out of it.

The two roads that led in the general direction of the breach had been hastily barricaded with furniture and a few vehicles; they were being manned by about two dozen-odd men and women who were firing on the Grimm swarm with a variety of weapons, several of them were clearly from the Vale Police Department judging from their uniforms. They were holding the line as best as they could and yet with every Grimm that fell to their fire, several more took their place and they were inching ever closer to the barricade. A cry went out from one of them, several Grimm were approaching from a different road, he switched away from the road he was facing to target the new threat. But unfortunately they were closing too fast and there was just not enough firepower.

Winter was already moving; she ran to the opposite side of the rooftop and hopped off of it, using glyphs to basically platform her way through the air until she dropped right down onto the middle of the road. With both blades held high she stabbed a rather large Ursa as she came down right through the head, twisting her entire body she tore its head off and jumped off right onto a creeper, destroying it with a flick of a blade.

Being a distance away from the breach now, the Grimm concentration was much lower and it took mere moments for the Specialist to clear an opening in the road, allowing some breathing space.

She sheathed her blades and quickly strode over to the man who looked rather stunned and slightly in awe at her appearance, "Atlesian Specialist Winter Schnee!" Winter barked quickly, "Who're you?"

Some sense seemed to return to him as he quickly snapped to attention and saluted, "Second lieutenant Lawrence Greenhill ma'am!" He shouted back, "My platoon and I were off duty when the Grimm attacked, we got these from the local gunstore right over there!" He waved them over to a store marked _Mikhail's Kalashnikovs._ "We've been holding here as best as we can with the VPD, but the Grimm are pressing hard and we're going to be overrun at this rate!"

"How are we on evacuating the civilians?" Winter asked.

"Not as bad as I thought, I think most of them are barricading themselves in their homes rather than coming out, they know their only going to targets in the open." At this point, the mercenary princess chose to drop down right beside Winter with a loud thump, startling the lieutenant and making him back away.

"Where'd you get those guns from?" Annie asked sharply, clearly eyeing the rifle that Lawrence was holding in his arms.

"Just over there ma'am." He pointed out _Mikhail's Kalashnikovs_ on the other end of the roundabout.

"Finally!" Annie let out a relieved sigh, "Some goddamn ammo and a proper fucking weapon are in sight!" So saying she tossed the rifle she had been carrying all this while to one side, and with a cheer she rushed away without another word, Winter could only shake her head in amazement as the mercenary went to get a better gun.

"Do you have any contact with HQ?" Winter turned back to Lawrence.

He nodded and quickly held out his scroll, "Yes ma'am, comms are sketchy though, we don't know what's causing the interference, but I was able to get through to HQ." She took the scroll from him, "They said to hold as best as possible for now, they're trying to scramble a Quick Reaction Force to assist, but I don't know what their ETA is."

"Any word on Disciple Team?" Lawrence drew a blank face at that.

 _So they haven't reported back yet? Shit I hope nothing happened to them, dammit what is with comms all of a sudden?_ Winter waved her hand dismissively, "Never mind that, we'll continue to hold this intersection," She punched in the number and held it to her ear, waiting for it to connect.

"With all due respect ma'am, we're going to get overrun at this rate." Lawrence ground his teeth.

Winter could only shoot him a look, "I understand lieutenant, but if we keep retreating then more civilians are going to lose their lives, we need to hold the line here, I'll-" a black shadow loomed out of the corner of her eye, she snapped her head to it and her eyes went wide.

"Nevermore! Take cover!" She yelled out as the large Grimm began a dive towards the position at a steep angle with its wings folded in, preparing to unleash a hailstorm of razor-sharp feathers at them. The men and women at the barricade could only look on with eyes wide as it approached them at speed.

Several loud shots rang out, and all of a sudden the nevermore unfurled its wings and fell out of the sky, tumbling towards the middle of the intersection. Winter immediately shoved Lawrence and dived out of the way at the same time as the bird impacted the ground and flipped over onto its back dead. Winter shook her head to clear it and coughed out somedust that had gotten into her throat as a shadow loomed over her, she looked up and found herself looking right at Annie Arc, cradling a rather large and mean-looking sniper rifle in her arms with a content and serene expression on her face.

"The exterminator has arrived." The mercenary had a manic grin on her face as she held out one hand which Winter took gingerly.

"Thanks." The Specialist was still rather loathe to have to accept help from the mercenary princess, on the other hand they were going to need all the help they could get because at the rate they were going, with reinforcements not arriving at any early point in time, it was all up to them to hold the line and wait for as long as they could.

It was at this point in time that the scroll chose to connect to the other end.

"Hello? This is Specialist Frost, who am I speaking to?" She cupped one hand over one ear and spoke into the scroll as Annie went to work helping the others hold off the Grimm.

"Winter? This is General Ironwood." The voice came back, "What the hell is happening out there?" He demanded.

"Sir?" Winter was immediately taken aback on hearing the General's voice, "It's a long story sir, the short version is that Roman Torchwick and the White Fang drove a train along the old subway tunnel to Mountain Glenn and broke the barrier into the city, leading a whole horde of Grimm from the mountain here. I'm sorry I couldn't stop them in time sir." Winter knew it was a useless apology to make, still she felt like it needed to be said anyhow.

"Don't you start blaming yourself for this now Specialist," The General stated firmly, "For now we need to deal with the situation as best as we can, where are you located?"

"About one klick north of the epicenter, I'm holding out with a bunch of Police and off-duty soldiers at a roundabout, the Grimm haven't coalesced enough this far out from the breach to be a major problem, but it's only a matter of time before their numbers start building up. We won't be able to hold this position forever sir." Winter quickly said

"Stay on it Specialist, we're scrambling as many gunships and paladins as we can, we don't know yet what caused the issues with communications but our technicians are working on it now."

"Sir, did you hear from Disciple Team?" She asked, hoping that the team had managed to at least make it out of the area intact.

"We only recently re-established contact with them, they've been holed up in the complex since the start of the crisis, we can't extract at this time due to the rampant nevermore activity and the situation on the ground is absorbing all of our aircraft with transport duties. They're hiding out until such time that we can regain control of the situation." He explained.

Winter breathed a sigh of relief, "Ok, thank you sir, any word on when those reinforcements are coming?" She stole a look at the barricade.

"Pour it on! _Pour it on_!" Annie shouted wildly, having apparently switched her sniper rifle out for a carbine, " _Nail_ those bastards!" Her words seemed to invigorate the men and women and they fought with renewed fury.

"An hour Specialist, maybe more, Grimm activity has spiked all around the perimater of the city and additional forces are tied down dealing with them, I can't promise you anything, do whatever you have to do to keep the area secure." Winter watched as another nevermore fell out of the sky.

"Understood sir, Winter out." She cut the connection and drew her sword.

It was going to be the longest sixty minutes of her life.

 _Maybe longer if I'm unlucky._ She thought to herself as she joined the battle.

 _ **At the same time,**_

Winter ought to have counted herself really lucky though, for as bad as her situation was –about to be surrounded on all sides by droves of hostile black creatures, in the very least she did not have to deal with wounded teammates that effectively cut the total fighting capacity of the team in half. Unfortunately for Team JNPR, even as Jaune was able to recover some of his strength and therefore, could support Ren better, the latter was still somewhat out of it and was slowing the team down as he had to be supported through the thick of the situation. Pyrrha and Nora danced repeatedly around the two males, destroying Grimm at will as Jaune now carried Ren over one shoulder and moved forward as fast as he could balance himself.

Jaune gnashed his teeth, the ache in his thigh had subsided some as his aura mended the wound, but without proper rest and constant aggravation through movement it was not going to heal soon. He watched as Nora pulverized an ursa with little effort, both Pyrrha and Nora would probably have been able to make their own way through the city far quicker than if they had not had to slow down to protect him and Ren.

That one fact seriously grated on his nerves.

"Left side high Pyrrha! _Left side_!"

"I'm on it!"

A nevermore began its run on them. At the front of the group, Pyrrha snapped towards the direction and fired off several shots. The shots impacted their targeted but were little more than a nuisance to the large flying creature. Still it managed to unbalance it and with a loud cry, sent it off course, sparing the team another barrage of razor-sharp feathers.

At the same time, Nora disintegrated another ursa from a distance behind with a grenade, the whole group kept moving forward as fast as they could; now Jaune had recovered some and could support Ren better, but the latter was still feeling the bad landing and now was carried over one shoulder to speed up the team's movement. He provided support where he could with his guns though they were of dubious effectiveness against the Grimm and mostly served to suppress them so that the others could move in for the kill.

"More of them from behind!" Nora shouted, a whole pack of beowolves was moving in right on the hunters with a deathstalker right behind them. It was not as large as the one they faced in initiation, but still large enough that it would be a problem for both Nora and Pyrrha without Ren and Jaune.

"Don't stop! Keep moving! We have to get someplace safe." Nora and Pyrrha continued firing as they backed up, Jaune continued forward as fast as he could. Out of nowhere, a civilians burst out from an alleyway at the side screaming as he ran as fast as his feet could carry him, right behind him a beowolf lunged forward and was on him in seconds, Jaune could only watch in stunned horror as it torn his neck out and then turned to face him with bloody teeth bared and snarling.

"Uh…" Jaune immediately grasped his sword and unsheathed it as the beowolf reared back.

Seemingly realizing what was going on despite facing the other direction, Ren started yelling, "Drop me Jaune! Just drop me!" Jaune had not time to even think, he let Ren slide off his shoulder and drop to the floor with a thud and yelp just as the beowolf leapt forward, he dived forward under the beast with the sword pointed right in front of him. The blade cleanly went diagonally through the beowolf's upper midsection and it dropped dead as Jaune rolled out.

"Ugh…" He grunted in pain as he used his sword to force himself up, thankfully he had not landed on his bad leg, he quickly grabbed Ren, this time in a piggyback, "Just shoot at anything unsavory." Jaune tried to cock a wry smile.

Ren merely gave a small nod of understanding.

"Jaune!" Jaune spun to regard his partner, "Get Ren and yourself somewhere safe! Nora and I will hold them off for while!" She urged as Nora smashed a beowolf into the ground and sent another flying into the side of a building as the deathstalker advanced on them.

"Not happening." Jaune shot back, "We stick together as a team, I'm not running the hell away just so you can die on me, into that building now!" He gestured to an abandoned cafeteria as the deathstalker started rushing towards them. With no time to argue back, Nora and Pyrrha rushed back as Jaune crashed right through the door and made for the opposite end of the room with the girls hot on his heels, the deathstalker thundered up to the building and slammed against it, the whole building shook but thankfully held. It roared as it continued to attack futilely.

"Let's get out to the back door, I'm sure-" A sudden smashing of glass, and Jaune barely had time to throw himself and Ren to the floor as the deathstalker's stinger tail rammed right through a window and tried to spear him right through, the stinger whipped back and forth, kicking up chairs and tables into the air wildly, Pyrrha threw her shield up in front of her just as the tail snapped towards her and sent her flying across the room on her back.

"Pyrrha!" Jaune yelled out as he left Ren on the floor and immediately joined the fight with sword and shield in hand, "Bat it this way Nora!" He shouted as he ran across the room, dodging another sweeping attack.

"Here I go!" Nora rolled under one strike and swung her hammer right at the stinger, at the same time Jaune crouched low and held his sword vertically as the tail was batted across the room by Nora and right into Crocea Mors. The sword cleaved right through the tail, momentum sent the upper half of the stinger crashing into the wall where it fell to the floor and did not move. Outside a horribly painful roar sounded and the building shook ever fiercer.

"We need to move!" Jaune rushed over to Pyrrha, "Are you alright?" He asked as he held a hand out, Pyrrha grunted but looked up at him with a small smile on her face.

"Just a little winded, I'll be fine." She got to her feet, and then nearly stumbled when the building shook with another roar.

"We all good?" Jaune looked at Nora as she hefted Ren up to a standing position, he looked really wobbly, "Ren? How are you holding up?" He walked over to the other boy and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Shit…I really need a break…" Ren gasped out in response, "All of this endless jostling about…screaming and shouting…" He growled as he gripped his head with one free hand, he suddenly gagged and nearly threw up on Jaune who quickly backed away.

"Just hold on a little longer Renny!" Nora insisted, "We're going to get help soon!"

Jaune took several deep breaths and pressed the heel of his hand into one eye, trying hard to clear his head to consider their next move. For the moment it seemed like the deathstalker had chosen to leave them alone and continue on, outside the screeching and the howling continued, it was quite likely what they had encountered was only the merest "advance guard" of the Grimm, those that were essentially individuals probably running rampant on their own. The main bulk of the horde was probably just behind them though.

 _C'mon think! You're the leader! You're supposed to have a way out of this! C'mon think! Ok, you're trapped far from any determinable source of help, you have a wounded teammate who's not going to recover any time soon, you're being hounded outside endlessly from above, and aforementioned teammate is slowing you down considerably since you have to delegate yourself to take care of him bringing effective combat efficiency of the team down to a miserable 50%, which means…_

According to what to he had been taught during his time in the Royal Legion, it meant that the person in question would be left behind and hidden as best as possible while the rest moved on so that once more help arrived, they could return to rescue the wounded since a slowly moving group would end up just getting whittled down through attrition no matter how many Grimm were killed.

" _The Grimm are endless," The fightmaster had taught him, "They will stop at nothing to kill every last one of us, and therefore each and every one of us has to be prepared to be left behind, not everyone in this world is so lucky that they can keep living on and on…sometimes you just lose, sometimes fate is just unkind, sometimes you just can't have everything."_

"No…" Jaune hissed, "I can't…I won't…" He staggered back.

"Jaune? What's the matter?" Pyrrha laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder, he looked up at her, her eyes were full of worry, "What can't you do?" Jaune sniffed and straightened up.

 _I won't leave anyone behind, I won't accept that option._ He shook his head and looked at the other two; both were shooting him questioning looks, expecting him to start giving out orders again, _But maybe..._

"Change of tactics, Nora…you'll handle Ren from here on out," Nora lifted an eyebrow quizzically, clearly getting it but not seeming to understand the rationale.

"I will go out onto the streets with Pyrrha, you take Ren and go through the buildings, they'll provide better cover while the streets channel the Grimm through to us, just use your hammer and bash a few holes, I don't think anyone's left around that would mind too much." Jaune sucked in a lungful of air and continued, "Pyrrha and I will move through the streets as quickly as possible to draw any Grimm's attention, take your time and be cautious, no fooling about, let's not get ahead of each other."

"Are you sure leader? I can take care of myself and Ren, but what about you?" The hammer maiden did not look the least bit convinced.

"I can handle myself, my leg is a little better now; it was probably just the shock of the landing." Jaune shook himself off and did his best to smile at his teammates, "Are you ready to go Ren?" The person in question grunted in pain but nodded as he hefted up by Nora, "Ok then, let's get out back Pyrrha, remember Nora just keep moving through the buildings and stay in cover, don't enagage unless you absolutely have to, just make sure Ren gets out."

"Leave it to me leader." Nora had an uncharacteristically serious look on her face as she gave Magnhild a twirl, "And you two stay safe as well, let's get out of this in one piece gang."

"We will, definitely." Jaune then turned to Pyrrha, "Let's go, we'll head out the back." His partner nodded affirmatively, "Good luck you two." He looked over his shoulder as Nora raised Magnhild and prepared to crash through the side wall.

"You as well leader." With that said, the four separated, with Jaune and Pyrrha making their way down a short corridor that lead to a door, as they both backed up on either side of the door, they could faint cries mixed in with the howling and baying of the black creatures.

"Ok, are you ready Pyrrha?" Jaune said, a loud crash signaled that Nora was already as work busting down walls.

"Lead the way Jaune." She nodded.

"Ok, let's go!" Jaune flung the door open and both the knight and the champion hurled themselves back into the fight.

* * *

And just as they did so, the first students were finally arriving on the scene.

"I don't get it, they've stopped moving." Weiss scratched her head as she looked at the scroll.

"They may have decided to hole up somewhere to wait for us; either that or they must've become trapped by something." Blake frowned darkly, "I wish this could move a bit faster." She knocked her knuckles on the bulkhead.

"Come on our friends need us!" Yang stomped impatiently, "What on remnant is taking so long?" She growled out to no one in particular and glared at the door leading to the cockpit.

"Get a hold of yourself Yang." Blake responded sharply, "Before your temper-"

"Everyone hang on!" The pilot's voice came over the intercom, "We've got nevermores inbound on us!" Ruby who had up until now been mostly quiet turned and tried looking out the window, and then the bullhead lurched violently to the left, throwing everyone off balance and sending them to one side, on the opposite side a shadow passed right by the window and a loud screech sounded as something buffeted the aircraft.

"It's right beside us! Get the door open!" Ruby ordered, "If they want to fight, let's give them a fight!" She shouted as Blake threw herself forward and slammed a hand on the door release button, the door flipped open and Team RWBY found themselves starring down the flying monstrosity. It opened its mouth and screeched at them as the aircraft righted itself and they regained their balance.

Ruby smirked as Crescent Rose formed out and she unloaded a hail of lead into the nevermore's face.

* * *

 **So how was it?**

 **I have some experience writing war sequences but I can't really tell if I was successful in those instances because…well no one really told me, so this is really going to preparation for when I do my take on the end of V3 where the stakes go even higher than they do here.**

 **What I really wanted to capture with the Breach in particular was the sheer brutality that such an event would have actually entailed with civilians basically becoming fodder for the Grimm, canon!breach was over fairly quickly and in that respect, I don't feel as if much actually happened in the event. Here in this AU-fic there are only two people available right at the site of incursion so it would be a lot more difficult for them to choke the Grimm right at the tunnel without being completely overwhelmed, canon had it such that there was one team of fairly exceptional trainees plus one professional, so they had more numbers on their side.**

 **And so without this early choking of the invasion, the Grimm would have a much easier time spreading out into the general area and wreaking a massive amount of havoc without any early first-response being developed. I'll admit it's a shameless way of creating dramatic tension. Much like how I wounded both Jaune and Ren, one thing I noted throughout the series is that although Ren is a competent fighter (something something he blew a King Taijitu to pieces with his bare hands), he has really lousy stamina and besides his actions during initiation, he has not actually done much for the rest of the series barring the upcoming V4.**

 **Like I already said I have a problem with how fast the breach actually went, with that in mind I have a lot of material I actually want to cover and so the whole event will be split into at least two long chapters rather than a massive single chapter, I'm not sure if I can get it out before the end of the month, I definitely want to continue my fortnightly update schedule but this month has been pretty busy for me,**

 **Whelp, that's all I have to say I guess, see you next time!**

 **Do leave a review if possible! I want to know how my war sequence writing it going!**


	31. Once More Unto the Breach Part 2

**Did I manage to actually finish this chapter?**

 **Yes, it appears that I did.**

 **Please do enjoy.**

* * *

"Fire! _FIRE_! _Put 'em in the ground_!"

"More of them coming up on the right!"

"I'll deal with it, just maintain the barricade!"

" _They just keep coming_!"

"Don't just stand there Bluer keep hitting 'em!"

"Where is our goddamn support?!"

"Shut up and keep firing! Don't let up!"

"TAKE COVER!"

An endless tide of red-eyed, black beasts poured forward, a seething mass of teeth, claws and rage all aimed for the men and women holding a little roundabout barely one kilometer from the breach. Onward and onward they pushed forward against the barricades, and yet the harder they pushed, the harder the motley crew of off-duty soldiers, Policemen, courageous citizens and a rogue huntress/mercenary fought back to keep them away. A hailstorm of lead crashed right into the Grimm as they pressed forward again and again, stomping right over the bodies of other fallen Grimm.

 _How long have we been fighting for?_ Winter wondered tiredly as she plunged both of her blades into the underside of a deathstalker, the beast screamed horribly and she quickly rolled out from under it before it collapsed right on top of her, with no time to spare she jumped to the side as a boarbatusk came charging right for her. It passed by her and continued on down into the roundabout, aiming to take the barricade from the rear through the road Winter was trying to hold.

"Annie! We've got a runner!" She yelled out even as her voice was drowned out amongst the gunfire and the howling and baying, she watched as the boarbatusk gored one officer on its tusks and threw him to the side as another officer screamed in fear. That was as far as it got though as it suddenly dropped dead and tumbled to the ground. Winter snapped her head to the opposite side of the intersection where the mercenary had set herself up in a sniper's nest, knocking down Grimm on both the ground and in the sky with incredible accuracy, switching targets immediately and continuing her work relentlessly, ensuring that every single shot counted.

Winter had to admit, the bulk of the horde which was now surging through to them would have overrun the position a long time ago if it were not for her efforts since Winter herself was a purely melee fighter and lacked the ability to provide the kind of efficient ranged support that Annie specialized in doing.

A man in a t-shirt and pants ran up to the very edge of the barricade and hurled what looked like a beer bottle with a flaming rag stuck out of it into the, the bottle sailed over the barricade and landed in front of a creeper with an explosion, flames burst out onto the road but it did little to halt the advance of the Grimm, none of whom were seemingly really bothered by the flames licking at their feet as they continued forward unceasingly into the face of the defenders.

Winter wiped the sweat of her brow as a whole pack of beowolves rushed forward to engage her; she estimated that despite the intensity of the battle it could not have been very long since the actual start of the breach, definitely less than an hour. Unfortunately for her though, the exertion of the previous night's battle combined with her knocking her head and the sheer franticness of their current situation were starting to take their toll on her body and her aura levels, she was not making slashes and cuts as cleanly as before, a few times her blades had gotten jammed when she misaligned the blow, and she had to rip it quickly and back off before she was grabbed and torn to pieces.

Without any immediate relief or let up in the attacks, it was becoming more and more difficult to focus even as the attacks escalated in their intensity, more and more of the 'advanced' Grimm in the form of King Taijitus and large deathstalkers were starting to come through, these were not easily handled with massed small arms fire and had to be engaged up close and personal by the Atlesian specialist. The whole ordeal was starting to really wear down the Specialist, she was breathing heavily; the sweat that gathered on her brow had to be wiped away with increasing frequency lest the droplets get into her eyes and further degrade her already dampened concentration and abilities.

Moving quickly from side to side, she was almost a blur of strikes and cuts, the pack went down in seconds just as a terrifying scream went up into the air. Winter spun around, eyes narrowing and teeth gnashing, another large wave was bearing down right in front of her. Cursing, she retreated back, giving some ground, putting some space between her and the beasts to give herself just a moment to recover.

On the opposite side of the roundabout, crouched low on the rooftop of one building, the mercenary princess continued knocking Grimm out of the air and putting them into the ground with ease, she had pretty much grabbed as much of the _Mikhail's Kalashnikovs_ reserves of ammunition for her sniper rifle and carbine and now sat comfortable leaning against the slanted roof with one knee propping up her rifle. She left the scope for a moment and looked over to where Winter was.

She cocked her eyebrow at the sight; Winter was running with her back turned towards a pair of small-ish deathstalkers, a King Taijitu and several Ursa.

"Running with your back to the enemy?" Annie smirked as she trained her rifle in the Specialist's direction, "That's _so_ _not you_ Winnie." She fired a shot that blasted one of the Ursa to pieces, switched targets and dropped another Ursa with a round right through its head. Taking careful aim at the King Taijitu slithering right and left, she nailed one head when it opened its mouth, its head bursting into a cloud of black smog, the other head continued on, slithering towards the specialist.

Annie watched as Winter spun on a heel just as the other head was upon her, she easily sidestepped the attack and decapitated the other head with a swift flick of her blade, the rest of the Grimm collapsed onto the ground and began vanishing.

Annie chuckled at that, "Keep at it Winnie," She smirked as she went back to work, "Not much longer now, at least I hope not." She watched as one of the off-duty soldiers was shredded by a hail of nevermore feathers, tearing bloody strips onto the ground as he was thrown onto the road.

"No time to be slacking off now," She lifted the rifle to her shoulder and peered through the scope sighted against the clear blue sky, a dark shape wandered right into view, she tracked it, moving slowly until she was sure that the shot with hit right where she knew it would ensure a definite kill.

She squeezed the trigger.

The rifle spat fire, a piece of lead was hurled out of it and it spiraled right into the face of one the nevermore, it impacted and exploded. The nevermore screeched loudly in pain as it fell out of the sky and crashed right into the wave of Grimm, crushing a few beneath its large body as it was trampled over by more Grimm advancing on the barricade.

Annie grinned and reloaded her weapon, at a minimum, even if the barricade fell and the whole lot of them was completely overwhelmed, she was in a good position to retreat to safer territory if she needed.

She snorted as more Grimm appeared, precious time would be wasted gathering more ammo if she did not spend the dozen odd magazines she had carried up to the roof carefully, add to that the rate of ammunition being used by the defenders of the barricade and she was pretty sure the gun-store owner was going to be making a gigantic loss, hopefully he could bill the whole thing to the council or the Atlesian military otherwise he was just going to go broke.

 _Oh well, not my problem._ Annie smirked as another nevermore went down.

 _Damn I'm so good at this, maybe I should try shooting left handed?_ She almost giggled at the thought of giving herself a disadvantage, ostensibly to give the Grimm a chance.

* * *

 _ **Elsewhere in Vale,**_

It was rather unlikely that anyone else in Vale shared the mercenary princess's enthusiasm for the fight, least of all her younger brother, who unbeknownst to Annie was currently engaged in the fight of his life just a scant few kilometers from her. While Winter, Annie and a motley crew of Vale Police Department, off-duty Atlesian soldiers and civilian volunteers weathered a horde of Grimm as best as they could, he was fighting sword and shield in hand in the middle of a cluttered street with one bad leg and with only his partner as support as the other two team members were out of the fight.

The black head of a King Taijitu lunged forward, Jaune threw his shield up and braced himself as it tried to snap him up, the upper jaw slammed into the shield, the Grimm's mouth was so big that its fangs protruded on both sides of the shield right beside Jaune's shoulders. He grimaced as the fangs seemed to gleam at him.

"Jaune!" Pyrrha cried out worriedly from the other side as she barely dodged a strike from the other head.

"I'm fine! Focus on the other head!" Jaune shouted without taking his attention of the head facing him, it retreated backwards and he lowered his shield momentarily as it reared back again. He watched it carefully, gauging the next time it would try and strike again, the beast reared back, red eyes boring holes into him, and then it struck again with its mouth wide open, Jaune barely sidestepped it while holding his sword out horizontally, it cleaved right into the side of the Grimm's mouth and then continued slicing through as the momentum carried the head onward, the Grimm hissed horribly as it pulled away, one whole side of its jaw hanging off loosely as it raised its head above and brought it down to try and crush the knight.

Jaune reacted, rolling out of the way as it came down with enough force to crack the concrete pavement, and before it could get back up he raised his sword and brought it down on the head. Simultaneously with that Pyrrha hurled her javelin right through the roof of the other head's mouth and then hurled her shield right at its neck, chopping it clean off. The Grimm's body collapsed to the ground and began slowly evaporating into nothing.

Jaune fell onto his bad leg and tried to catch his breath, he grunted and slapped it a few times, it was utterly infuriating to have to fight at less than full capacity. Pyrrha quickly rushed up to him and knelt beside him.

"Are you alright?" She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, Jaune grimaced as a sharp pain spiked through his leg.

"We…" He took a deep breath, "Team RWBY better get here fast, I can't keep this up for much longer."

A thundering crash sounded and the champion and the knight watched as part of a building wall seemed to collapse and their companion disappeared into a building with her hammer and her partner.

"Nora's moving again." Pyrrha noted

"Then we'd better keep up, we're making a lot better progress now, plus Ren is safer with Nora." Jaune jammed his sword into the ground and used it to stand up shakily, the Grimm on the ground had thinned significantly to the point where they were no longer a threat, the main threat was now the flock of nevermores that were ranging freely over Vale and targeting anything and anyone unlucky enough to get caught in their talons or a storm of razor sharp feathers, and the results of that were clear to see all around as Team JNPR continued moving, dead bodies littered the streets, men, women and children alike.

Pyrrha stopped and gasped, covering her mouth with her sword hand, there lying on the sidewalk right in front of her, a young girl collapsed on her side, her eyes wide open and staring into nothing, her face frozen in an expression of pure terror in her last moments, blood flowing out from a series of large gaping wounds on her back onto the pavement, staining it red. A lump formed in Pyrrha's throat as she felt nausea rise from her stomach, she gagged and nearly vomited, tears welling in her eyes as Jaune walked over.

"Pyrrha what's the hold up? We…" He stopped short of scolding her when he saw what she was looking at; his face fell and he let both of his arms fall to his sides as Pyrrha bowed her head with her back still towards him, a quiet sob escaped from her lips as Jaune stretched out one hand and gently gripped her shoulder, "C'mon, let's go." He urged softly as Pyrrha turned to look at him with tears in her eyes.

"We were…we were _supposed to protect them_." Her voice a mere whisper, Jaune could only give a small sigh and looked right into her eyes.

"There's _nothing_ we can do for them now," He said explained as best as he could, "We'll avenge them later, but for now we need to link up with Team RWBY, _then_ we'll take back the city." Pyrrha let her shoulders sag at that and looked around, the young girl was not the only still body on the streets.

"All of them…" She shook her head slowly, "They…just…"

"Pyrrha." Jaune's voice was sterner and harsher now, she faced him with wide eyes, "We need to leave… _now._ "

"I…" Pyrrha seemed to finally understand though; she raised one arm and quickly swiped her face off, blinking back tears as she took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment before opening them and setting her face straight, "Ok, let's go and find Team RWBY." Her voice cracked a little, but she seemed to find herself.

"…We can talk after the battle if you want." Jaune nodded, Pyrrha's eyes went wide again but she merely returned the nod as Jaune walked over to the body, kneeling down beside the corpse, he took a moment to look her over. She could not have been any older than they were, from the casual way in which she was dressed it looked like she might have been just going about her day when the breach occurred.

 _Dammit, you weren't supposed to die so cruelly like this…_ He sighed and raised his hand over the girl's face and closed her eyes with his fingers so that the horrified expression left that hollow, empty face before standing up and continuing on, as they left Pyrrha gave one last look at the body before gritting her teeth and following after her leader.

The streets were mostly deserted now as they continued moving down the road, abandoned vehicles littered the area in large pileups, their occupants clearly having hastily abandoned them in the rush to get out of the streets; most of the residents appeared to have taken cover in their houses and various other buildings to wait out the battle that was taking place outside. The team continued moving as fast as they could, Nora crashed her way through various buildings, alleyways and corners while Jaune and Pyrrha continued down the streets as fast as they could.

Another loud screech, another nevermore dived down upon the streets below, Jaune and Pyrrha spun around and raised their shields as the bird perforated the area with its razor-sharp feathers. The feathers harmlessly bounced off as though they might have been mere raindrops, without the ability to retaliate against their aggressor, the duo were forced to continue moving on as fast as they could, they ducked into an alleyway to catch their breath, dodging another hail of feathers as they went.

Jaune leaned against the wall and threw his head back onto it, the sharp pain in his leg still had not quite ebbed away.

All of a sudden, the brick wall beside him collapsed, he jumped back and raised his sword, only to find Nora popping out with Ren still on her back.

"Leader, I know you said to use cover, but I just hope that we don't end up getting charged like Team RWBY was." She said as she hefted her hammer up on one shoulder.

Jaune lowered his sword and smirked, "We'll just say a Grimm did it, besides no one's around to see anything." He turned to Pyrrha, "Right Pyrrha?"

The champion looked between the hammer maiden and her partner uncertainly, "Uh…sure…yeah…I think it was an Ursa." She said weakly, Jaune looked her over, from the way she was trembling a little and breathing heavily, he guessed that she was still troubled by what she had seen.

 _It gets easier._ Those words echoed out in his head, they were the same ones the old fightmaster at the Royal Legion's training grounds had told him when he had first started out, _It always gets easier as you find ways to cope, because if you don't find a way, you'll find yourself breaking into more pieces as time goes on._

He contemplated parroting the words back to his partner, but then shook the thought off, there would be time for words later, and right now they were pretty deep in the woods and Team RWBY was nowhere to be found. He fished out his scroll, it was still connected to their companions, but he deigned against trying to talk through it to them in case he ended up distracting them in the event that they were busy dealing with their own problems at a critical point in time.

On the other hand, they really needed to communicate more, they had not spoken to each other since that little club building that they had ended up in, and now Jaune was concerned that the team had lost their position and were now wandering around trying to find them.

 _Ah, fuck it._ He growled as the rest of his team looked at him quizzically.

"Hey Ruby? Are you there?"

* * *

 _ **A short distance away,**_

"Standby! We're just a minute out from your drop-off point!" The pilot called out over the intercom.

"Ok team!" Ruby banged the bottom of her scythe on the floor of the bullhead, "We're gonna get in there and we're gonna rescue Jaune and his team! Once we do that we'll contact Professor Goodwitch and see where she needs us to go." She nodded and adopted a serious expression on her face.

"Question!" Weiss raised her hand.

"Yeah?" Ruby quirked an eyebrow.

"Since Jaune and Ren are wounded, what should we do with them?"

"Erm…" Ruby thought for a moment, "We need to evacuate them to a safer area, I'm sure Professor Goodwitch should have designated some kind of gathering point or something like that." She shrugged, Weiss looked somewhat satisfied by that answer as she nodded in return just as the pilot's voice came back over the intercom.

"We're nearing the dropzone! Hang on we're gonna put her down!"

"No need!" Ruby called out, "You guys get back to the Academy and see what else needs to be done! We'll be fine from here on out!" And then she turned to face her team, "Ok…Team are you ready?"

"Come on! Come on! Let's go already!" Yang hollered and pumped her fist with a fiendish smile on her face.

"Deploy!" Ruby shouted and hurled herself out of the bullhead door, the rest of her team followed suit right behind her.

Back in the bullhead the pilot looked out the window just in time to watch his cargo launch themselves out of the aircraft and hurtle earthward from quite a distance up, he turned to his co-pilot and said, "Man those folks are a buncha crazies I tell ya, leaping into that crowd down there."

"What do you expect?" His co-pilot answered with a shake of his head, "They're hunters."

As the bullhead flew away, Team RWBY descended the hundred odd meters to the ground at full speed, only just realizing in midair that they were jumping into a crowd of people on the ground.

Thinking quickly, Ruby used the recoil from a shot in combination with her semblance to change her direction of travel from vertical to linear in a fraction of a second; she slammed onto a rooftop on her feet and skidded a fair distance, " _Whoa_!" She cried out as she balanced on one foot at the edge, barely stopping herself right before she plunged over the edge and into the throng of people down below.

Yang was next, firing both her gauntlets to slow her descent enough for her to crash right through the rooftop and landed on the floor below them to loud shouting and screaming.

"Yang!" Ruby cried out and dashed to the hole and peered through it to find Yang having landed right on a dinner table, in that same room there appeared to be a family of four who were huddled in a corner staring fearfully at the huntress, "Are you alright?" Ruby called down, Yang gave her thumbs up as she struggled to get up and faced the family.

"Sorry about that! I was aiming for the road but it's kinda crowded out there." She tried to explain herself, the family exchanged unamused glances with each other.

A young boy however, only had an awestruck expression on his face, "That was so cool!" Yang grinned back.

"No problem kiddo," She jumped up and grabbed at the edge of the hole and pulled herself up as Blake swung down on Gambol Shroud, shortly thereafter joined by Weiss hopping down from a glyph.

Ruby took stock of their current situation, looking down she could a massive jam of people heading away from the breach as they pushed and shoved at each other in mad desperation to escape the incoming horde of Grimm, vehicles had been left abandoned in the middle of the road as people swarmed around them. So far the only Grimm that had shown themselves were flying nevermores, thankfully none of them were anywhere close to the size that they had encountered during initiation, allowing the team to knock a few out of the sky on their way to their drop off point.

"Damn, that's a lot of people." Yang remarked as she looked over the crowd.

"If the Grimm get to this point it's going to be a massacre." Blake seemed to shiver a little.

"They won't, we won't let them," Ruby set her face and turned to Weiss, "Weiss, where is Team JNPR now?"

"Not far from here," The heiress answered, "They're just-" She was cutoff when the scroll began to talk.

"Hey Ruby? Are you there?" Jaune's voice crackled out.

"We're here Jaune, where are you?" Weiss answered.

"Weiss!" Jaune sounded quite surprised, "Why do you have Ruby's-? Ok nevermind that, where are you guys?" He returned the question.

"We just landed someway north of your position, there's a massive crowd coming down the street and it's completely jammed the road dead. I still have your position locked on the scroll, doesn't appear too far from here, just hang tight and we'll make our way to you ok?" Weiss responded earnestly.

"Well then you'd better hurry up, Grimm activity is picking up in strength, the main horde can't be far behind now, I think…" The line went silent for a moment.

"Jaune? Jaune are you there?" Weiss called out worriedly as the rest of Team RWBY gathered around her, "Jaune?! Come-"

" _FUCK_! That deathstalker's back!" Jaune's panicked voice erupted over the scroll as garbled shouting could be heard in the background, "Pyrrha suppress it! Nora get us out of here!" He began barking orders "We're going to make our way up the road to you!" Jaune shouted into the scroll.

"Got it! We'll be there as soon as we can!" That was all they got out of him before the line went dead, an explosion in the distance made them snap their heads up, a tall column of brown smoke rose up in the distance from an explosion.

"Damn…" Was all Yang was able to say.

"Ok!" Ruby leapt to her feet, "Let's go! We'll use the rooftops, no way we're getting through that crowd down there, hop to it team!" She readied her scythe, slammed its gun barrel into the ground and squeezed the trigger to propel herself over towards the next rooftop closely followed by her teammates.

"Watch the sky!" Blake yelled out as she hit the roof and rolled once before coming to a stand. Right in front of them a whole flock of nevermores were coming right for them, the fleeing masses of civilians in the street easy pickings for them.

"Those civilians aren't going to make it!" Yang hit the roof beside her partner and looked down upon the street, it seemed like the multitude on the road had realised what was happening and were now in a tremendous uproar with screaming breaking out and a furious stampede erupting as they desperately sought whatever protection and cover was available to them in the buildings around.

Ruby was immediately at work, her gun pointed right at the sky, she zeroed in quickly on one nevermore and with a single trigger squeeze, dropped it right out of the air. But there were numerous more incoming and she was not going to be able to stop them all no matter how many bullets she had on her.

"We don't have the firepower to take them on…" Weiss muttered, "We're the only thing here capable of protecting the civilians but…" She gnashed her teeth and looked into the distance, "Our friends need us as well."

The dilemma hit Team RWBY especially hard, they could stay and fight for the people as best as they could with what they had…or they could leave them, continue forward and go to their friends who were at the very moment probably fighting for their lives with one of them already badly injured. The team were stuck and Ruby could only flick her head back and forth, torn between two separate duties, one to the people and the other to the prince she had given her word to protect.

 _I can't…why…do I really have to make this choice?_ Her expression fell as she considered their options. Save as many of the populace as they could? Save their friends? Why on Remnant did such a choice have to…

"Ruby." Blake suddenly spoke up, the reaper looked up with apprehension visible on her face, "Whatever happens, choose fast, we can't save everyone." Ruby tore her eyes away from the faceless mass of running civilians and faced towards the direction she knew the prince and his team was in.

Gritting her teeth and gripping her scythe tightly, she made her decision, "We're going after Jaune, follow me." She said as firmly as she could, her voice wavering just a little.

Weiss narrowed one eye and raised one eyebrow quizzically, but said nothing.

And off they went, leaping and sailing across rooftops as chaos reigned around them, Ruby took a few pot-shots that felled a number of nevermores, but otherwise the team remained firmly focussed on their task, moving as quickly as possible in the direction of their friends, doing their best to ignore all other problems. They came to a far break where the rows of shop houses were separated by a T-junction and took just a moment to check their surroundings; it seemed the crowd had dissipated; only stragglers remained.

"Hey!" Yang shouted out making several look up at her, "Get off the street! Find somewhere to take cover! You're not going anywhere with the crowd up ahead!"

"Where the hell are we supposed to go to then?" One woman shouted back.

"Get indoors and barricade yourselves!" Weiss answered, "It's the only way you're getting out of this alive!" Most of the civilians looked at each other and their companions uncertainly, although the Team wanted to stay and help, there were more pressing matters for them to attend to.

Leaving the civilians to fend for themselves, the team continued on. So far so good, there was a noticeable lack of ground-based Grimm this far from the breach, "We're nearly there!" Weiss said as she jumped off a glyph and landed softly, "They're just-" She was interrupted by a massive explosion just a short distance away that rocked the entire area, sending dust and debris showering all over the place and making the team stumble as brown smoke engulfed a shop house in front of them.

"What…" Yang coughed out some dust and waved her hand frantically in front of her, "The hell was that?" Yang queried with a raised eyebrow, and then the unmistakable barking of orders came out.

"Pull it further away! On your right Pyrrha! RIGHT SIDE!" Team RWBY's eyes bugged out when Pyrrha Nikos shot right out of the brown smoke heading down the road right for them, and chasing her on her heels was a large deathstalker with stinger-less-tail and claws angrily snapping and flailing about as it ran after the champion.

Ruby acted quickly, Crescent Rose set up and aimed right at the deathstalker, "Iceflower!" She ordered out, her partner was at work in an instant, a series of glyphs opened up in front of the barrel just as the reaper squeezed the trigger. The bullet shot right through the glyphs towards the rampaging Grimm and hit it right on its head, encasing it in ice, the Grimm was stunned by the surprised assault and crashed headfirst into the ground, it got up and started flailing madly, bashing and crashing into buildings, streetlights and a few vehicles.

"Now bumblebee! Aim for its head!" At the order Blake threw out one end of Gambol Shroud's long fabric and swung it as Yang grabbed on to it, Blake twisted her body, swinging Yang in a full revolution and hurling the brawler right at the Grimm.

As that happened, Ruby was already giving the next order, "With me Blake! Ladybug, take out its legs!" She leapt off the roof with Blake right behind her, "Weiss, Checkmate once the Grimm is disabled!" Yang hit the Grimm with incredible force, shattering the ice and pummelling the Grimm right on its head as it roared horribly and shook fiercely to try and get her off.

Ruby and Blake sped around to its sides, Ruby holding out her scythe and swinging in a wide arc with all of her strength to cleanly slice off several legs at the same time. Blake did the same, using her fabric to hook the hind leg before yanking herself forward with a hard pull, taking off more legs. The Grimm fell to the ground, its last few legs not strong enough to continue moving it, Weiss made her move, descending right on top of the Grimm and attacking one claw while Blake kept the other busy.

Just in time for Yang to raise both of her hands and with a loud cry, hammerfist-ed the Grimm's head into the ground. The beast finally went still, collapsing the ground and going limp as Yang hopped off and dusted herself off.

"That wasn't so hard." She smirked as Ruby turned her head and took notice of the champion staring at the scene as the dust finally began to settle.

"Ruby!" Pyrrha's face was wide-eyed, shock and elation simultaneously combining into a wide grin that stretched across her face, "Thank goodness you got here in time, I wasn't sure we were gonna make it." She bent over and placed her hands on her knees, her body heaving up and down as she tried to catch her breath, clearly exhausted both physically and mentally.

"Hah! Don't worry so much," Yang walked over and patted the champion on the back, " _Xiao Long_ as we're here, you'll be just fine." She grinned.

"Not. The. Time Yang." Blake growled out.

Before anyone else could say anything, another voice came out, "I never thought I'd be so happy to hear you pun like that Yang." Jaune limped over from around the corner of the ruined shop house, "Boy are you gals a sight for sore eyes." He huffed.

"Jaune!" Ruby's face brightened considerably, she rushed over and to everyone's surprise, threw her arms around him tightly, Jaune returned the favour as best as he could as Ruby released her grip and took a step back, "You scared the crap out of me when you called and said you were shot down in a bullhead in Vale." She continued with a worried expression on her face.

"We didn't know what to think when the alarm sounded, and then next thing we know Ruby is dragging us to our lockers telling us you had been shot down and needed help," Blake nodded with a curious expression on her face, "Good thing we got here in time."

"Yeah well…" Jaune looked away momentarily before shooting her a cheap smile, "You all sure _took_ your time."

And before Ruby could answer, another voice came out, "Yeah! Man we were starting to think maybe you gals got lost or something!" Nora called out as she walked up behind her leader with Ren on her back, the two teams faced each other.

"Wow," Yang took in Team JNPR's dishevelled and worn appearances, their features caked with dirt and dust and clothes torn in some places, "You guys look like hammered shit." She pushed out her lower lip, Jaune laughed at that.

"Yeah? Well crash landing in a bullhead and then fighting your way through a whole bunch of Grimm all the while being bombarded by nevermores does that to you…" He trailed off with a weak laugh to smiles all around.

"What blew up though? I don't think any of you carry that much firepower on you." Yang gestured to the blasted ruins of a row of shop houses.

"Stray shot from Magnhild hit a dust shop and…" Was the answer, Jaune mouthed a quiet 'boom'.

"Speaking of which!" Weiss suddenly spoke up, "Didn't you say you were injured? How're you and Ren?" She asked.

"Ren is kinda concussed and he needs some proper recovery time, I landed on my leg so it really hurts but I'm sorta ok." Jaune explained, "What's our next move? Did the professors come up with some sort of defensive plan?"

"Oh yeah!" Ruby perked up, "That reminds me! We have to contact Ms. Goodwitch." She quickly took up her scroll and dialled furiously, it took a while, but the scroll connected, "Professor!" Ruby lowered the scroll as everyone gathered around it.

"Ms. Rose? Have you linked up with Team JNPR yet?" The professor spoke in an agitated manner.

"Present and accounted for professor." Jaune spoke up.

"Ah Mr. Arc," The professor's deadpan voice came over the scroll, "I was beginning to think for a moment that we had lost you." Despite her best attempts at sounding neutral, her tone betrayed her evident concern and relief, "What's yours and Mr. Lie's current status?

"Ren's combat ineffective, and I'm standing on a wounded leg, has a casualty clearing station been set up anywhere?"

"Not yet, we're still trying to scramble whatever we can throw into the fight, right now your best bet is to find cover somewhere and wait out until we can get to you. The first response teams are already beginning to secure their positions and we're marshalling them to push forward towards the breach, right now the Atlesian Quick Reaction Force is already in the air and will be there shortly."

"Ok, I'll take Ren and get somewhere safe," He then turned to the girls, "Pyrrha, Nora do you think you can continue fighting with Team RWBY?" Pyrrha and Nora exchanged glances before Nora shrugged and heaved Ren off of her with the latter groaning.

"Take care of each other you two," Nora looked between the two of them, "Don't go dying on me and Pyrrha now just because we're elsewhere." She stated, "We'll kill your share of Grimm for ya." There was a twinkle in her eye and a smile on her face.

"Stay safe Jaune." Pyrrha walked over and hugged him tightly, Jaune reciprocated.

"I will, you take care too Pyrrha, you're going right back into the danger." He replied before looking back at the scroll, "It's settled then, I'll hole up somewhere with Ren until its safe, Pyrrha and Nora will continue on with Team RWBY."

"Alright then," Glynda answered, "Team RWBY plus two listen up, at this moment a band of Atlesian soldiers and Vale policemen have holed up at a roundabout two kilometres South of your current position, they are surrounded and are about to be overrun, move quickly to reinforce them! That roundabout is a crucial intersection where which we can stage a counterattack, Team SSSN is South-west of your position, linkup with them and move out, is there anything else?" Glynda said as quickly as possible while Ruby watched as a map was displayed on her scroll screen with the objective identified with numerous markers showing the other teams and her own. A "yellow zone" covered a large area out in front of their marker; in the middle of that marker was their objective, a distance away, another marker showed Team SSSN slowly moving down a road.

"Sun is here…?" Blake's eyes lit up. Ruby eyed the map carefully trying to plot a route, the fastest path would be to divert to an overpass just east of their position and then it would be a straight run to the objective.

"But the skies aren't clear Professor," Ruby shifted her view upward, numerous black specks could be seen dotting the sky, "I'm not sure how you're going to get anyone else in here."

" _I know that_ Ms. Rose, you have your orders." And just like that the connection was cut.

"Damn, she must have her hands full; I wouldn't want to be in her position right now." Yang shook her head.

"Well I'd better get going then, stay safe you gals, let's all get out of this together." Jaune held out one fist.

"Yeah, definitely." Ruby nodded, a determined look on her face as she bumped the fist back, "Go Team Humanity!" She grinned as the rest followed suit, wishing Jaune and Ren well before both departed down the road.

"Alright gang!" Ruby turned to the others, "First things first, let's establish contact with Sun and see where he's at." She quickly dialled the number in, and it took just a moment for the monkey Faunus to answer.

"Ruby? Where're you gals? Professor Goodwitch told us to-"

"Link up with you I know," Ruby interrupted him, "We have to get to the Atlesian forces, where're you guys at?"

"My team is running down erm…" He paused, "Ok, Fifth Avenue in the direction of the breach, resistance is building up and… _Sage watch that corner_!" He yelled out furiously as shouting could be heard in the background.

"Sun?! Hey what's going on?"

"Ok that's taken care off," Sun could be heard breathing a sigh of relief, "I think it'll be better if we spread out and stay our current course, these streets are channelling and boxing in the Grimm so we can stop their advance if we push on multiple roads." He explained.

"Got it, I'll be running down Second Avenue, we'll up right at the roundabout at the end." Ruby agreed.

"Ok, I guess that's that then, see ya gals soon-Neptune! Watch your damn back!." And just like that the connection cut off.

"Sun?! Dammit!" Ruby grunted as she kept her scroll and looked up at the others, "Ok, look here," she held out her scroll in front as everyone gathered around, "There's an overpass in that direction," She pointed out, "It's a straight run to the objective from there, so let's use that, we'll stay under it so we aren't sitting ducks for the fliers up there." She gestured skyward, it seemed that the nevermores had left them alone for the moment.

She received nods all around as she kept her scroll, "We'll move as fast as we can, Yang and Nora stay in front and bust us a way clean through, Pyrrha and Blake cover our flanks, Weiss and I will provide support from the back, everyone set?" She looked the group over.

"Just in time leader number two," Nora leaned back and jerked her thumb down the road, "Here they come again." She flatly stated as she shouldered her hammer, down the road several beowolves, a few ursi and another deathstalker were advancing.

"Alright team…erm…uh…" Ruby took up her scythe and struggled to think of a name that incorporated both Pyrrha and Nora into RWBY.

"Why not just Team Girl Power?" Yang lifted an eyebrow, "We're the six best females in the first year after all."

"That's-"

"Gals!" Blake shouted as the horde drew closer.

"Ok Team humanity!" Ruby deciding to use the name on a whim, "Let's roll out!" She cheered as the six charged forward and into the fray.

* * *

 _ **Atlas Military, Vale Command Headquarters**_

General James Ironwood ground his teeth as he looked over a holographic display of the city of Vale and the surrounding areas. He had spent the previous night worrying himself over the _very_ impromptu operation that had basically been thrown together in the space of just a day with _very_ minimal intelligence, planning and preparation, the small team that had been inserted into the old mountain Glenn complex would have little idea of what exactly they would be walking into. Despite that though he had the utmost confidence in Specialist Winter "Frost" Schnee and the recon team that she had picked herself to assist her in the operation, he thoroughly trusted the Specialist to complete her mission and return safely.

Now that mission had somehow gone belly-up and had escalated into a full-blown Grimm incursion.

His forces were stretched thin dealing with the sudden increase in concentration all around the perimeter of the city, no doubt a side effect of the massive amounts of negativity that must have been unleashed when the breach had first occurred. He gnashed his teeth; almost all of his reserves had been deployed as too many hunters had left the city to participate in various missions for the benefit of the trainees in Beacon, whatever Professor Goodwitch had managed to scrounge up and hurl headlong into the breach was now fighting to protect civilians and establish a line of resistance to the incursion before it broke free and overwhelmed the city.

Issues with communications had not been fully resolved, but in the very least were partially mitigated now.

And in the midst of all this…

"General! Specialist Frost is on the line." His adjutant handed his a mic that he placed to his ear.

"Frost are you there?" He called out.

"General!" Winter's voice was panicky, "We're can't hold for any longer! We're being overrun!"

"Understood Specialist we are airlifting a QRF to your position at this time." The General remained as calm as possible.

"What? No!" Ironwood's eyes narrowed at the Specialist's words, "Call them off! Position is completely untenable, the Grimm have completely overrun the intersection; they'll be dropping right into a slaughterhouse. I'm holed up with the rest of the defenders in an apartment complex to wait for the hunter teams from Beacon."

"I see." The General furrowed his brow, "What do you need Specialist?"

"First we need the skies to be clear; it was the fucking nevermores that broke our line," Ironwood did not flinch at the Specialist's uncharacteristic swearing, "After that we need to bring in serious air support if we want to secure the area."

"And what's your current status Frost?"

"I've got multiple casualties, wounded and dead, so far the apartment is a lot more defensible, but the intersection is just completely overrun…" There was a long pause and Ironwood could hear Winter breathing heavily on the other side, "I'm sorry sir."

"You did your best Specialist," Ironwood acknowledged firmly, "Just hang tight as best as you can and wait for reinforcements, I'll see what I can do about the aerial problem."

"Thank you sir, now if you don't mind…" The Specialist took a gulp of air, "I've gotta get back to the fight." And before the good general could respond, the line was cut abruptly and he was left standing there with the static of the mic buzzing through his air. He gave a great sigh and took it out of his ear before turning to his adjutant.

"Send all available air support to clear the way to Specialist Frost's position," He ordered at length, "Get the Paladins ready! Once a path has been cleared I want those mechs on the ground supporting the push back immediately!" He ordered at length.

* * *

 _ **Somewhere in Vale,**_

"Easy Ren, easy." Jaune slowly let Ren settle with his back against the side of a narrow and dark alleyway between two large buildings.

"Shit…" Ren whispered softly, Jaune looked him over, his face was pale and his lips were drained off colour, his eyes were glazed over and staring into empty space as he let his head rest against the wall. All of a sudden he burst out into a minor coughing fit, and keeled over to one side.

"Whoa Ren hold up!" Jaune grabbed a hold of him to keep him upright as Ren dry heaved onto the ground, spitting out some saliva before righting himself and closing his eyes, his breath uneven and coming out in short, sharp gasps.

 _Dammit…_ Jaune sighed, although he knew Ren had hit his head and suffered a concussion for it, but that was only the most _obvious_ problem that he was suffering from. Jaune hoped that that was the only real problem and that Ren was not suffering from some other internal injury that was not as obvious as a headache, dizziness and nausea.

 _Let me think…let me think…_ Jaune wracked his brains for an idea, Ren's eyes seemingly shifted in focus and looked clearly into Jaune's own, startling the prince for a moment, "Ren, are you there?" Jaune waved his hand in front of Ren's face, watching his eyes follow the movement of his hand.

"Thirsty…" Ren growled out. Jaune quickly reached to his back and found the water canteen that he always carried around with him and quickly took it out, passing it to Ren who took it eagerly and unscrewed it, tipping his head back he downed several gulps in one go before passing it back to Jaune who kept it back on his belt. The prince-in-hiding had a thought, and he suddenly grabbed Ren by the shoulders and began laying him down on the ground on his back.

"Jaune…? What're you doing?" Ren's eyes widened when Jaune began pulling at the former's clothes.

"Just stay still, I'm making sure you're not injured internally or anything." He stated simply as he exposed Ren's bare torso, he slowly ran his hands across Ren's chest much to the discomfort of the other boy who did his best to ignore the fact that his team leader was practically feeling him up, "Can you breathe slowly and tell me if it hurts?" Ren took a few breaths slowly and easily, "Well?"

"I'm a little short of it but I'm fine." He answered.

"Ok…" Jaune slowly ran his hands up to Ren's upper torso, it looked fairly pristine, pressing to feel for Ren's ribcage, it felt quite solid, "I don't think you broke anything, maybe a minor bruising but you'll be fine if you can recover your aura, can you twist your body?" Ren shifted left and right for a moment and nodded.

"Right, you're good." Jaune finally settled down with his back against the wall as Ren righted himself beside Jaune and began putting his clothing back in order. Jaune heaved a sigh as he took a drink from his canteen, "How do you think the girls are doing?" He asked out of nowhere.

"Definitely…better…than us two… _schmucks_." Ren's words were slow and took some effort; he managed to emphasize the last word strongly, leading to a hearty laugh from Jaune.

"Well…" Jaune looked up into the sky, the sun was now high in the sky and it was clear and bright all around now, "Hopefully this just ends soon."

"Hopefully…" Ren muttered.

* * *

 _ **Second Avenue,**_

Team humanity rushed forward against the horde of Grimm, punching, crushing, spearing, slicing and dicing and frying the Grimm in their wake leaving a long trail of black smoke rising into the sky in their wake as they pushed forward relentlessly towards their objective. Thanks to the overpass situated above them, they were afforded sufficient cover from the increasingly dense flocks of nevermores soaring overhead looking for potential victims on the ground below the road underneath the overpass was wide enough for all six to manoeuvre around the area easily enough without getting in each other's way, enabling them to make good progress.

"I'm on fire!" Yang grinned widely as she launched one arm upwards and uppercut an ursa, the blow was so powerful it lifted the Grimm off the ground and a few feet into the air, at the same time she braced her other arm back and then sent it forward while firing off a shot, blasting the ursa backwards and into an unfortunate beowolf, "And so are you!" Yang's eyes were a blazing crimson red, a savage smile adorning her face as she ran forward and took a flying leap with one arm outstretched.

She flattened a creeper into nothing on landing, rolled, and shot another beowolf into pieces with her gauntlets.

"And that makes thirty-five! Anyone else keeping score?" She banged her fists and turned to the side just in time to see Nora smash one head of a small King Tajitsu in while Blake decapitated the other.

"That's _thirty-six_." Nora hefted her hammer onto her shoulders and shot a cocky smile and smirk, "I'm sharing that one with Blake, right Blake?" The hammer maiden looked to the cat Faunus, Blake simply shrugged in response.

"Yeah right!" Yang rolled her eyes, "That makes it thirty-five _point five_ , that's simply math-"

"Stop stalling and keep moving!" Ruby hollered out from the back, "We need to get to our objective before the soldiers get overwhelmed." She scolded.

"Sheesh _ok_ sis," Yang lifted her arms and began running forward again, "You don't need to keep shouting every five seconds." She scoffed

"I wouldn't _need_ to shout every five seconds…if you didn't keep _stopping_ every five seconds." Ruby squeezed the trigger and another beowolf bit the dust as the round impacted.

"We're making good time, let's keep up the pace team." Weiss was being surprisingly encouraging as all six continued their charge through the Grimm horde. Ruby checked the map on her scroll as they continued, within the last twenty minutes or so they had gotten quite a distance ahead of Team SSSN on the other side, they were now almost in sight of their objective.

The sound of a thud behind her made her spin around, a snarling beowolf was right behind her.

 _How on remnant did it…?_ Ruby was already moving even as her thoughts processed the sudden intrusion, as the beowolf lunged forward, Crescent Rose swung forward and took it head clean off as more beowolves seemingly fell out of thin air. One of which went straight for her partner who was distracted creating a glyph that launched Pyrrha up in the air. Ruby activated her semblance, and in a blink she was beside her partner with another dead beowolf falling to the ground in smoke.

Weiss spun to look at her in astonishment, her jaw opened a little to say something but Ruby merely pushed her forward, "Keep closer, we're going to be surrounded." She then turned to the others, "They're falling off the overpass!" She called out, "Pyrrha! Blake! Tighten the formation! Keep them off us! Yang! Nora! Slow it down a little, don't get separated!" She ordered.

"Geez Ruby! Make up your mind already!" Yang growled as more Grimm died to her fists. A whole King Tajitsu slithered off the top of the overpass and fell right in front of Yang and Nora, halting both in their tracks as both heads reared up hissing loudly.

Yang raised an eyebrow and turned to Nora, "I get the left, you get the right, and this one counts for us both." She explained.

"Ok!" Nora nodded excitedly.

The overpass began to curve away from the main road as they went, diverting away to another part of the city, Pyrrha shot one creeper as it fell off the overpass and looked to the front. Away from the cover of the overpass was a single, straight stretch of road flanked on the left by a construction site and the left by what looked like an empty park. Further in front were a series of apartment complexes which had Grimm crawling all over them.

 _They must be trying to get at the residents inside._ She thought frantically as she looked around to check on the others, they had cleared out a small area of Grimm between them.

Ruby felt her scroll start buzzing intermittently in her pocket just as she popped the head of an Ursa, cursing angrily she shouted out, "Cover me gang! I need to take this call!"

"Oh that's just brilliant!" Yang sarcastic voice came out, "Ask if the caller needs the pizza boy or something!"

"Shut up and keep fighting Yang!" Weiss replied.

 _Who on Remnant would…oh._ Her eyes widened when she saw that it was Professor Goodwitch was on the line, she tapped the connect button.

"Little busy here professor!" Ruby answered, "What's-"

"Ms. Rose," The professor cut her off sternly, "I'm putting you in touch with General Ironwood."

"General Ironwood? But what-" And before she knew it, the General's face had appeared on her scroll screen, "Oh! Sir! Uhm…" The reaper was not sure what she was supposed to say.

"Ms. Rose is it?" For the second time in a minute, Ruby was cut off, "This is the situation, the team holding the roundabout has been overrun, they've taken refuge in an apartment complex but they have wounded on their hands as well as dozens of civilians and need immediate assistance. I've pulled back the QRF but a wing of attack craft are on their way…you following me?"

"Yes sir." Ruby was unsure of what to make of the new situation.

"Ok, the attack craft will be in position soon but I need you to make your way to the apartment _now_. They're not going to last much longer, also try to bring some kind of signal with you, the airmen will need to know where you are."

* * *

 _ **Meanwhile, top floor of a non-descript apartment building,**_

Winter pushed Private Redmond back against the wall as he panicked and jerked about, "I'm bleeding out! I'm bleeding out!" He screamed out loud, referring to a large cut on his neck. From experience Winter could see that it was a mostly superficial wound even if it was a little deep, it certainly had not cut anything important else he would have died a long time ago.

"Just calm down!" She forced him back against the wall, "Calm down private! The feather went through clean; you're going to be fine!"

He apparently did not hear her as he continued struggling while Winter tried to apply the bandage to him, "It's still bleeding!" He screamed again.

 _Oh for the love of…_ Winter raised one hand to slap the man and…

*THWACK*

A rifle butt came out of the side of her vision and bashed into the head of Private Redmond, knocking him out cold, the specialist turned to the side to see Annie glaring at the soldier.

"He was being annoying," She snorted before moving back to her position at a window, a beowolf appeared before it, its claws reaching into try to pull it forward and into the room, snarling horribly all the while. Annie brought out her sword and stabbed it right in the face; she wrenched it out and the beast fell out of the window with a whimper.

In the end the few dozen of them had just been whittled down to a small handful, the stairs leading up to the upper floors had been barricaded by every single piece of furniture that could be brought to bear, stopping up the Grimm as they tried to claw their way past all of the obstacles, in this way just a few men were able to hold the line with the beasts literally at the bottom of the stairwell, the rest scattered to various windows to hold off the other Grimm trying to scale the front of the building. All around them terrified civilians either huddled together in corners, assist the wounded or did their best to fight back with what they had, knifes attacked to brooms and the like. Together the motley crew held their ground.

Winter snarled at the mercenary angrily for her rough action as she set to work applying the gauze and the tying the bandage on the knocked-out soldier. Working quickly, she tied the bandage up and left him leaning against the wall, she would have preferred giving him a shot of morphine but unfortunately she had to admit that the mercenary's actions were probably for the best at the moment.

She wiped the sweat of her brow as she stood up, "Ok, you there! Man in the red shirt!" She pointed at a civilians watching the scene from the side-lines with wide-eyes, he turned to her with a surprised expression on his face and his finger pointed at himself, "Yes you! Do you have any fireworks?"

"Fireworks?" He repeated back with a confused expression.

"Fireworks! Flares! Poppers! Sparklers! Flash crackers! Fog machine! Silly string! Anything we can use to make a signal!" Winter asked frantically.

"Uh I…I don't…" He scratched his head, "I don't think so…"

" _Fantastic_ , go around the apartment find _anyone else_ who has such things, we need it for when our reinforcements arrive, go." Winter ordered, the man sort of budged and twitched but remained confused, " _GO NOW_!" Winter yelled at the top of her voice.

"Yes ma'am!" He snapped to attention and scurried away as Winter shook her head in frustration.

"Damn civvies…" She muttered, having left almost all of her equipment with Disciple team back at Mountain Glenn, she was being forced to improvise.

* * *

 _ **Second Avenue,**_

"Ruby no." Yang shook her head fiercely, "That's suicide! _Even you_ would have problems getting through all that." The brawler jerked her thumb down the road which was still teeming with Grimm, from the very edge of the bend below the overpass; they stood on an elevated position and could just make out the roundabout down the road.

"I'm the only one who can make it in time!" Ruby insisted as she set the small canister of dust on her belt, "The soldiers need our help!"

"There must surely be a better solution than this." Blake grunted as she set up her long fabric as the reaper shook her head.

"There's no time! The attack craft will be here soon and it'll take too long to fight our way there, I'm the only one who can make this trip, it's just a little way down the road anyway." She shrugged as she prepared herself, "Weiss you'll take command while I'm gone." She stated.

"Wha…? Me?" Weiss gestured to herself in shock.

"Didn't you always want to be a leader?" Ruby smirked, "Well now's your chance, since Jaune's out and I'm away, it's your turn now Weiss…you can handle it right?" Ruby lifted an eyebrow.

"Yeah…" Weiss looked a little unsure in matter of fact, "Yeah I can…I mean it's just…"

"Great!" Ruby perked up, "Let's do this." She began pulling back on Gambol Shroud which was looped between two of the pillars supporting the overpass, around them both Pyrrha and Nora fought to ensure the team could work undisturbed.

"For the record, this is as bad an idea as the first time we did it." Weiss deadpanned as she readied herself, a glyph appeared right behind Ruby as she stretched out the length of Gambol Shroud's fabric with her scythe before standing on it.

"Hey it worked didn't it? So that makes it the opposite of a-"

"Just go already!" Weiss shouted in a frustrated tone.

"OK!" Ruby cheered, "on three! Three…two…one…launch!" And in a flash, Gambol Shroud snapped forward at the same time that the glyph activated and Ruby was gone in the blink of an eye.

The reaper felt the world around her surroundings rush by in a flash, and in a breath she was sailing through the air far above the city below her. As she reached over the buildings she looked directly at the roundabout, although she had been initially worried about locating her target, she was surprised by how easy it was, the building in question was the only building wherein people could be seen at the windows with guns firing out. Aligning herself accordingly, she felt herself begin to slow and reach the apex of her launching arc, the reaper then activated her semblance propelling her right in the direction of the building, aiming for one of the empty windows.

Annie heard a whistling sound and snapped her head up just in time to see a red… _something_ in the sky start arcing towards the building; she watched it in fascination, tilting her head quizzically to the side as she watched it blast through the air trailing a series of…were those flower petals? The mercenary could not really tell from this distance as the red object grew bigger and bigger from the view of the window, apparently heading towards the window that was right beside the one that she was at.

…

Annie had just enough presence of mind to yell out, "Incoming on my right window!" Just in time for the red figure to explode through the glass and on to the floor.

"Huntress Ruby Rose is here to save the-!" Ruby was cut off mid-sentence when she found herself staring down the length of a blade, "Day?" She looked up and found herself looking into the eyes of…

"Winter?" Ruby quickly shook her head and corrected herself, "I mean Ms. Schnee? You're here?"

"Ms. Rose?" The Specialist lowered her blade, "Fancy seeing you coming to save me, are you the reinforcement?" Winter asked flatly.

"Yep!" Ruby nodded, "My team is just down the road, but the General contacted us and said you were in need of immediate assistance, since we were the closest team I hatched a plan to launch myself over and…well…" Ruby threw up her arms and let them fall to her side, "Here I am."

"Good timing," Winter nodded with a small smile, "We need all the help we can get, air support will be here soon and we need a way to-"

Ruby quickly cleared her throat, "That's why _I'm_ here; I've brought this with me!" She showed her canister of dust, "Weiss said we could use this," She handed it to Winter who inspected it carefully, "Ms. Schnee I didn't know you were here, if I did-"

" _I just happened_ to be in the area Ms. Rose, that's all." Winter said with a wave of her hand as she clicked her tongue, "This is a combination of refined light dust mixed together with fire dust as a fuel, the fire dust is refined with other chemicals to create a fuel that burns slowly, prolonging the overall length of the light source and ensuring that it can stay illuminated as a signal…" Ruby sort of lost Winter after the word 'refined', "I guess Weiss has a few tricks up her sleeve as well, as to be expected of an heiress…"

"Uh…ok…so will it work?" Ruby said hopefully.

"It _should_ work." Winter grasped it tightly, "Let's hope my little sister got the mixture right." She glanced at Ruby.

"Ok! I couldn't find any fireworks! But there was this guy who was about to throw a party last night and he had a whole bunch of these sparklers and poppers!" The man in the red shirt suddenly appeared and threw down a whole bunch of things that he had been carrying in his arms.

Winter stared at him for a moment before saying, "Thank you, we'll use them as backup," Her voice was dry as she lightly nodded and turned away, "Now, Annie I need…Annie?" Winter flicked her head back and forth; the mercenary princess had somehow upped and vanished into thin air from the room they were in.

 _Nevermind, she probably switched positions._ Winter put her erstwhile companion out of her head to focus on the task at hand, "I have to get up on to the highest floor to watch for the eventual airstrike, can I count on you to keep the Grimm at bay here?"

"Leave it to me." Ruby nodded confidently.

"Alright then," _Need to find a something I can use as a fuse…matchsticks…any string?_ Winter ran to a cupboard and starting pulling every drawer out onto the floor, it took just a moment for her to find tape, a ball of twine and a box of matchsticks, "Ok I'm going up to the rooftop to watch for the reinforcements." So saying she immediately left, exiting the room and entering the long hallway filled with a dozen odd wounded soldiers and policemen as others continued firing to keep the windows clear. Gunfire and loud animalistic snarling erupted from below her as she entered the stairwell and headed up to the top level, pausing only briefly to make sure the team holding the stairwell was doing fine.

"What's up?" Annie greeted as Winter reached the top of the stairwell.

Winter rolled her eyes, "So this is where you were? At least give me a heads up first." She walked to the window and looked out of it, the streets below were teeming with Grimm moving down them in a single, large, uninterrupted black mass, the roads leading in various directions were doing a surprisingly good job of funnelling them and boxing them in.

"So what've you got there?" Annie ignored the question and stood beside Winter, gesturing to the canister that Winter held.

"Improvised flare." Winter held it up and looked at it again, "Since we don't have any launchers, it shouldn't be a problem for someone of your strength right?"

Annie looked bemused, "You're suggesting that since we have nothing to throw it with, I should just throw it as high as I can?"

"Well like I said, shouldn't be a problem for someone like you."

"Fine, but you owe me."

"I don't owe you anything."

"Except a hundred thousand-"

" _Fuck. Off_."

* * *

"Yang maintain your position in front, push us through but don't move too fast, Pyrrha shift to cover our back, Nora shift to cover Pyrrha's position on the side," Weiss barked out, "Maintain this formation, stick to your sectors, call out any problems you see. Ok let's go!" She ordered as the team of five jumped off the elevated position and pushed forward down the road right into the teeth and claws of the Grimm.

 _Ok, at this rate…_ The scroll showed that they had left Team SSSN behind by a fair distance, but other teams could be seen pushing into the yellow zone down various roads and streets, slowly tightening and hammering in the line.

 _This is good; if we keep this up we could still have time for lunch later._ Weiss pocketed her scroll and pushed forward, she maintained the centre of the formation, looking over the other team members.

"One! Two! Three! One! Two! Three!" Yang grunted and puffed as she pounded her way through Grimm after Grimm, now her sister was probably out in the thick of it as well, she needed to get to her as fast as possible before the position was overwhelmed.

 _This is too slow! We're not going to get anywhere like this!_ Yang thought as she fought on, they needed some kind of boost…some kind of assistance…otherwise it would be like banging their heads against a wall of Grimm.

"Come on!" Yang cried out in anger, "Come and get some!" She roared amidst the howling and snarling. She threw one fist forward and another ursa disintegrated from Ember Celica's blast, a beowolf came up from beside and she snapped her other arm back to deliver a blow to it, she threw her arm forward as it hurled itself forward.

Her other gauntlet clicked empty.

She had no time to feel surprise, the beowolf careened into her and threw her backwards and almost into Weiss who barely jumped to the side to dodge the errant brawler. The heiress cursed loudly and immediately ran the beowolf through with her rapier before turning back and grabbing onto to Yang.

"On your feet!" She yelled, "We have to keep going!"

Yang was starting to tire, _everyone_ was, a thought at the back of her mind said that she had probably killed more Grimm over the last few hours then she had ever killed in her entire life leading up to this point. Her gut wrenched hard as she pulled herself to her feet with Weiss's help, the heiress helping her with one hand and pointing out with the other hand. It had only been a few hours but the morning that she had woken up and decided to kill time and vent some stress from being cooped up in Beacon for so long in the training room seemed incredibly far away for some reason.

As the Grimm surged forward, Yang had had enough, a couple of days ago she had been tossed into a room where she was berated by a bunch of people in suits, made to listen to them insult her family, then stuck into a dingy little cell with the rest of her team, forced to wear cuffs, then made to listen to those same people in suits again…

She roared angrily as she charged forward all over again.

She was answered by a different roar that came from above; several nevermores fell out of the sky around them, crashing into the rooftops and falling onto Grimm in the streets below.

"What the hell?" Yang turned her heads skyward for a moment.

Just in time for a bullhead to streak overhead firing machineguns and missiles into the horde of beasts below, the loud explosions tossing Grimm into the air coupled with the sound of afterburners firing was utterly deafening as it soared overhead, Yang spun her head around and her eyes grew wide as she watched another bullhead begin its run…right towards her and the rest of the team. "Everyone get down!" She screamed and instinctively threw herself to the ground as it opened up again, shredding through the horde easily before pulling away up into the sky. Yang immediately leapt to her feet, and threw one fist into the sky.

"Woo!" She cheered, "Get those fuckers! Let's go team!" They did not need a second word, all five pushed forward with all their might. The battle raged in the sky now as it did on the ground as more than a dozen aircraft from the Atlesian military sought to clear the skies off the nevermores that had been hounding everyone since the start of the breach.

"Whoa! What's that?!" Nora yelled out as she stabbed her finger skyward, a trio of massive airships pushed their way steadily through a flock of nevermores.

"That's the Atlesian military! Our reinforcements are here!" Weiss cheered loudly.

"So do you play any sports?" Annie asked, sitting in one corner while Winter sat in the opposite corner, down below Ruby helped a man throw furniture down the staircase and onto the Grimm as they tried to force their way in.

Winter gawked at her, "No I don't…why would I even…" She stuttered for a moment before she shook her head and spoke clearly, "This is relevant… _how exactly_?"

"Do you do anything artsy? Let me guess uhm…" Annie snapped her fingers a few times and hummed, "Aha! _Ice sculpting_!" The mercenary pointed at her with a gleaming smile, looking very pleased with herself.

Winter continued staring with her jaw slightly agape, she was not sure she could comprehend exactly what was happening, "Why would…how…what're you _even doing_?" Winter screeched.

"I just want to get to know you better, that's all." Annie shrugged, "I mean…I think those guys are starting to get overwhelmed down there, and it's only a matter of time before those things get up here." Winter narrowed her eyes, neither looking particularly amused or convinced at all, "Ok fine, I'm trying to lighten the mood."

"You want to…I don't even…" Winter sighed and let her shoulders slump and did her best to ignore the other woman.

"Come on! What is it? Did you dance or anything? Maybe do some writing on the side?" Annie was being remarkably insistent and it was really grating on the specialist's nerves.

"No!" Winter shouted and glared right at Annie who merely continued looking at her, Winter ground her teeth and sat up straight, "Alright you wanna know? I tried my hand at drawing as a hobby when I was a kid ok?" She folded her arms across her chest, "There happy?"

"Ok." Annie merely nodded as she leaned back, seemingly satisfied.

Winter's eyebrow twitched, "Then let _me_ guess, you do…trap shooting? Air rifle shooting? Something to do with shooting no doubt." It was obvious of course, that skill with firearms had to have started from somewhere-

"Surprise surprise," Annie sardonically replied, waving her arms about, "but no." Winter rolled her eyes, she was not going to push this issue, "C'mon just take a guess."

" _Annie_ ," Winter said slowly and forcefully, "I really don't want to do this thing now."

"Pfft, fine," Annie childishly stuck her tongue out at the specialist and leaned her head back, "By the way." She said, "I think your reinforcements are here."

"Oh really?" Winter rolled her eyes, "Why don't you just..." And then something occurred to Winter, "WHAT?" She leapt to her feet with a cry and looked out the window, just in time to to watch the sky battle taking place, missiles and gunfire were knocking nevermores out of the skies and sending them plummeting to earth, more aircraft were approaching their position at a rapid pace, "Get up Annie!" She yelled at the mercenary who simply lifted an eyebrow, "I said get the hell up unless you want to get incinerated by friendly fire," She roughly shoved the canister into Annie's hands and yanked her to her feet as she struck a match.

"Geez, cool off Winnie." Annie wrenched open the window and readied the canister, Winter lighted it and as the makeshift fuse of twine tapped to the canister began to burn down, Annie hurled the object upwards. It exploded with a thunderclap sound as it sailed through the air, bathing the area in an incredible light that blinded both woman and made them both duck their heads down.

Meanwhile downstairs, Ruby and the lieutenant were doing their best to hold off the Grimm, "Whoa!" Ruby called out, jumping at the noise, turning away from the creeper trying to get up the staircase. That must have been the signal for the arrival of the reinforcements! They were all going to make it.

"Hey don't get distracted kid!" Lawrence grunted as he threw a chair at the creeper that made it tumble back down.

"Sorry!" Ruby apologized, her scythe was problematic to use in confined spaces, so instead of the blade, she squeezed the trigger and ended the creeper.

"Did they see us?" Annie asked.

"They better have." Winter growled.

The front most aircraft began its bombing run, a long line of large cylindrical, grey objects dropping off its wings as it flew over the roundabout, the noise was utterly deafening as a whole series of explosions went off in rapid succession. Black smoke and flame erupted in a straight line, wiping the Grimm out by the dozens, dirt and debris flew everywhere as the bombing run approached the apartment they were holed up in.

"That's getting really clos-"

"Get down!" Winter grabbed Annie and threw both of them to the floor as one last bomb impacted the ground barely fifty meters from the apartment, the blast wave smashed into the building, shattering windows, and sending a shudder through the whole building. Winter pulled herself to her feet as she watched more aircraft descend on the position, using machineguns now to clear away the remainder of the Grimm.

"Well hello 2nd Ground Support Wing." Recognizing the emblem on the aircraft, she watched with a smile as the aircraft flew over, tearing up the Grimm with cannon and missile fire.

Further above them, a trio of large airships were descending on the position, fires spitting from their cannons as the roundabout was swiftly cleared out. Several of the bullheads began landing, their doors opening with dozens of Atlesian troops spilling out to continue the fight against the Grimm who continued to advance, heedless of the amount of fire that was being poured into their hordes.

"I'd better get down there, Annie can you…Annie?" Once again the mercenary had vanished into thin air, leaving Winter talking to thin air.

Winter grumbled and shook her head in a resigned manner, she had more pressing matters to deal with, as she descended down the steps, her scroll began ringing at her, "General!" She answered as quickly as possible, "Good timing on the reinforcements!"

"Glad to hear it Specialist, I've also designated the gunship designated 'Warhammer' to provide aerial fire support for you, get to the landing zone and look for technical sergeant Donald Waters."

"Roger that sir." Winter cut the connection and pocketed her scroll. She headed down to the long hallway, "Ok everyone listen up! Reinforcements are here, I want the wounded down and on a medevac stat! Lieutenant Greenhill!" She called out.

"Down here ma'am! There's a beowolf here that just won't go the fuck away!" He called out, "And Ms. Rosy here is out of ammo!"

"It's _Ruby Rose_!" Ruby cried out indignantly.

"Yeah sure kid whatever you say."

"Well deal with it! We're moving the wounded out, everyone pack up and follow me!" The remaining few uninjured soldiers and officers began helping the wounded to their feet as best as they could, Winter took hold of one man with his head wrapped in bandages and slowly led him down the stairs as Ruby finally managed to bash the beowolf out. Outside the soldiers had already mopped up most of the Grimm and were beginning to organise to push the Grimm back.

"Soldier!" Winter yelled at one who was running across.

"Yes ma'am?" He immediately stood at attention and saluted; she approached him and handed the man off to him.

"Get these people a medic and evacuate them out of the area of operations, where is Technical Sergeant Donald Waters?" She said quickly.

"Over there by that bullhead ma'am." He gestured quickly as he began shouting for more help.

"Thank you corporal." Winter strode up quickly to where another soldier was furiously tapping away at a large tablet and ordering a few other soldiers about, "Sergeant Waters!" She called out

The man spun around, "Are you Specialist Frost?" He asked.

"I am." Winter stopped right in front of him.

"Ok ma'am, take this." He turned and picked up a large, rectangular object with a lens on one end and a screen on the other, "Also pass me your mic set." Winter did so, detaching it from her belt and taking off her earpiece, he begun fiddling with it as she examined the laser designator.

"Alright, that's done; you now have a link back to General Ironwood." He nodded.

"Ok, who's in charge of this operation?"

"That would be Major Blackmore, he should be arriving with the second wave, our orders are to secure the area and hold for further reinforcements, the Major wants to wait until the Paladins are brought up and we have total fire superiority." Waters explained as he held up the tablet he was holding, Winter could see the positions of every known unit and hunter team around Vale as well as markers showing the Grimm.

"That makes sense…" Winter stroked her chin as Waters nodded, "How long until the Paladins arrive?"

"Not long now ma'am, they should be right behind the Major."

 _Seems like things are going well, hopefully there won't be any further disruptions._ A loud yelp and cry jolted her out of her thoughts and she turned. There a short distance away she noticed Ruby reuniting with her team, her little sister was right there.

"You made it!" Ruby was grinning widely as she rushed over.

"Ruby!" Yang wrapped her arms around her little sister, hefted her up and squeezed hard, "I'm so glad you're ok!"

"…an…eathe…!" Ruby struggled and gasped against Yang's powerful grip, the brawler let go with a loud laugh as the rest of her team congratulated her for making it out.

"Oh Weiss!" She suddenly perked up, "Your sister is here, I just met her."

Weiss looked stunned with her jaw slightly open, "Winter is here?! I mean…wait…" She cleared her throat and quickly calmed down, "Yeah of course she'd be here, she's a specialist after all." The heiress folded her arms, explaining it in her usual as-a-matter-of-fact tone.

"Hey girls!" The team turned to find Team SSSN waving at them as they ran forward.

"Sun!" A wide smile broke out on Blake's face as the two Faunus greeted each other happily.

"Neptune!" Weiss hugged happily, "You guys made it."

"What took you guys so long anyway?" Yang exchanged a fist bump with Sage.

"I think we had to take like the bulk of the Grimm horde, there were like dozens of 'em everywhere!" Neptune puffed as Sun looked around, he eyed both Pyrrha and Nora carefully.

"Say where are Jaune and Ren anyway?" He asked, and then his breath got caught, "Don't tell me they."

"Relax Sun," Blake patted him on the shoulder, "Jaune hurt his leg and Ren hit his head, but they'll be fine."

"Oh phew," Sun breathed a sigh of relief and slumped downwards, "Thank goodness, I thought for a moment something bad had happened." He beat his own chest with one fist for a moment.

"Leader and Renny are pretty tough, they'll be ok." Nora nodded confidently and looked to Pyrrha for confirmation, Pyrrha smiled at her in apparent agreement.

As the hunter teams met up with each other, Winter and the rest of the Atlesian Army was already continuing the fight. She looked at the map of the breach and the forces opposing it, the combined forces of the hunters and the Atlesian Military were tightening the frontline against the Grimm and pretty soon they would all be able to push forward on a unified frontline straight down the roads and streets of the city. The infantry had already formed dense firing lines that were holding the Grimm back though with some difficulty as the bigger ones could tank an impressive amount of firepower. Still, more were already being brought in to shore up the initial wave.

"Major Blackmore," Winter greeted with a nod of her head as the moustached commander stepped off the bullhead and strode over to her.

"Ah Specialist Frost, good to have you with us." He shook her hand firmly with a tight smile on his face, "The Paladins should be arriving shortly, until then our orders are to hold the line, once we bring up the Paladins we can begin advancing slowly down the major roads leading towards the breach with the hunter teams in support." He explained slowly as they walked to a temporary command post, continuous gunfire echoed out all around them as soldiers fought to keep the Grimm back.

"Are there any more reinforcements or is this all there is?" Winter asked.

"This is as much as there can be, Grimm activity has surged throughout the area, my battalion and those gunships above…" He gestured on top to the three floating airships, "And the Paladins are all you're going to get, Beacon is working on getting more hunters into the area, but for now the younglings are all we have."

"Damn." Winter growled, she would rather not have to continue relying on the children, especially not when one of them was…

"Winter!" A familiar voice rang out, Winter spun on a heel, having already acknowledged it the moment it had come out, she tensed as Weiss ran up to her with the rest of her team behind her with a separate team of males that she did not recognize. "Winter I-" Weiss tried to speak but Winter held up a hand to stop her.

" _Not now_ Weiss, for now get your team and any others you can find to the front, we will begin pushing back the Grimm once we bring up further forces." She said sternly, "Now can you handle that?" Both of Winter's eyebrows jumped up and remained there as Weiss skidded to a halt.

"I…" Weiss seemed rather taken aback and a little stunned, but was able to force herself to nod and reply, "Yes Winter." She said a little unsteadily and bowed her head.

Winter let out a small sigh and turned to Major Blackmore who was regarding the two curiously, "As you were Major, I'll handle this." He gave the merest of nods and moved away silently.

"Winter?" Weiss looked up with wide eyes, and was surprised when the Specialist patted her on the head with a small smile adorning her face.

"There will be time for talk later, we have a fight to finish first, extra supplies are coming in so get your team loaded back up and ready to fight, I'll see you again when this is over." She said softly, gently lowering her hand to caress Weiss's cheeks.

Weiss's face considerably brightened up on seeing that and she nodded before backing away and heading back to her team. Winter straightened herself up as she watched her little sister converse with the others before the entire group –she counted ten- moved away. Pushing thoughts for the concern and well-being of her younger sister and instead choosing to trust in her own skills and strength, Winter turned her attention back to the task of organising this force to push the Grimm back to whence they had come.

"Well they don't have any of _my_ ammo that's for sure." Yang sighed as she tossed the rounds back into the crate, "You'd think the _damn military_ would have a ton of ammunition, but nooooooo…" She rolled her eyes.

"Well I need to go to a dust shop to refill, so I'm kind of out until we do so." Weiss sighed in apparent agreement.

" _Lots_ of mine though," Ruby eagerly grabbed several rounds of high-explosive incendiary rounds and put them on her belt.

"Ok, I'm set." Pyrrha stuffed several clips in her pouch and closed it.

"So am I!" Nora nodded cheerily as she hefted her hammer.

"I'm good too." Blake set the magazine on her belt and looked at the others, "So its only Yang and Weiss who don't have ammunition?"

"Well Sage doesn't have to worry about ammo since all he has is that sword of his," Sun jerked his thumb back, "The rest of us are having trouble since none of the Atlesian Military apparently uses the same type of ammo that we do."

"So how about this then?" Ruby snapped her fingers as a thought occurred to her, "You guys can stay in front, we'll support you from behind, with two-and-a-half teams, we should be able to roll this reach up no problem at all." She looked between them for agreement.

"Alright, I guess its time to show you ladies what we're made off." Sun jokingly flexed one of his biceps and held it up.

"Oh yeah?" Yang folded her arms and smirked, "Well I'd like to see you-"

"Hey are you lot going to help out here or are you just going to stand there looking pretty?!" A loud voice came out, making all of them jump, looking around worriedly for who had called out to them.

"Over here kids." Lieutenant Greenhill walked up to them, Ruby's eyes widened as she looked him over, he had already changed into full battle dress with helmet tucked under one arm.

"Excuse me?" Weiss placed her hands on her hips, "Looking pretty?" She narrowed her eyes and glared sharply at the soldier who blithely ignored her.

"Yes, since that's all that you lot appear to be doing while the rest of us are over there busting our asses out trying to keep the Grimm back, so why don't pop over to the front and give us a hand?" He jerked his thumb behind him as the cannon on one of the gunships floating above opened up in a series of dull explosions and more gunfire rang out loudly across the area.

"Ok that's enough dallying!" Ruby held up her scythe, "Let's go gang!" She quickly moved past the Lieutenant who kept still even as a Weiss and Yang of them shot him somewhat nasty looks though the rest simply pushed past and ignored him.

* * *

 _ **Beacon Academy,**_

From the viewpoint of the Beacon faculty, the situation was now well contained as hunter teams and Atlesian Military units across the perimeter of the city and within the vicinity of the breach coalesced together to first hold back the onrushing hordes of black beasts, and then finally begin to slowly push them back away from the city. In the skies above aircraft furiously battled with scores of nevermores, several aircraft getting swarmed and torn out of the sky by the sheer number of flying creatures filling the sky, crashing into the city below and adding to the chaos and carnage on the ground as soldiers and hunters alike fought desperately to hold the line.

"So when can we get down there and scrap those beasts ourselves?" Port asked eagerly as the professors watched a holographic display.

"I wager we can do it soon Peter," Oobleck sipped from a cup of coffee, "The students have just about done what they can, it's up to us adults to pick up where they left off."

"We might not need to though." Ozpin pointed out at several markers moving quickly towards the yellow zone, "It seems like the cavalry has arrived for real this time."

* * *

 _ **One kilometre from the breach,**_

Without overwhelming firepower, the soldiers and hunters found it difficult to continue moving forward, progress was exceedingly slow even as the Grimm were contained to barely a square kilometre of ground that was packed and writhing like a black carpet that was somehow alive.

"We're not going anywhere at this rate." Winter ground her teeth as she watched the Atlesian soldiers pour fire into the horde while colourful figures danced through the horde slaughtering as many as they could even as more took their place.

"Maybe, it won't be long now though." Major Blackmore looked up into the sky, Winter followed his gaze and her jaw dropped.

An airship-no, an utterly massive _dropship_ was descending out of the clouds right above them.

"All units standby for Paladin-drop!" Blackmore called out into his mic.

Winter watched as the cargo bay doors on the massive dropship opened, exposing a dozen of the recently delivered production model variants of the Atlesian Paladin mechs hanging in mid-air on their frames. As the dropship flew over, one by one the Paladins were released and fell out of the drop ship, as they did so their rocket boosters fired up, long jets of flame spitting out, slowing their descent considerably as they dropped out of the sky. The Specialist watched in awe as one flattened a King Taijitu on landing with others hitting the ground with enough force to break the road and shake the earth, kicking up dust as they unfurled their arms and legs and immediately went into action.

Wild cheering erupted from the men and woman of the Atlesian Army as the mechs waded into the thick of the fight firing machine guns and rockets right into the Grimm hordes, killing dozens in a single go, moving forward and eliminating the black creatures with cold, brutal efficiency. The Paladins divided themselves up between different sectors andwith a slow and steady pace they began their push forward towards the heart of the breach itself, providing heavy fire support as regular soldiers moved forward in front of them.

"Whoa…" Ruby watched in stunned silence as the Paladins went forward with the soldiers surrounding them, she was currently perched on a rooftop using her sniper rifle to support her teammates below. She watched as they mowed their way through the Grimm with complete ease, "I'm glad those are on our side."

"Woo!" She turned her head sharply at the loud cheering; Yang was right in the thick of the fight, seemingly heading the charge forward, "Let's get them!" A series of loud cries went up from the Atlas military as if in response to her cheer.

"Yeah! Go team humanity!" Nora yelled out, the hammer maiden running alongside the brawler to more cheering as everyone surged forward in a counter-charge.

"Everyone charge!" Sun waved the combined form of his gun-chucks about as his team ran with the soldiers.

"Yang! Nora! Wait!" Ruby called out as she chased from the rooftops with Blake right behind her. On the opposite side Pyrrha and Weiss kept pace.

"What do you want to do Ruby?" She asked.

"Ugh," Ruby scrunched up her face, "I guess we'll let Yang and Nora lead the charge, I want everyone else support them with everything you have." She ordered.

It was only a single, bare kilometre of Grimm standing between them and the tunnel from which they were pouring out of, but the Paladins had given the necessary boost and with the hunters leading the charge down the roads straight for the epicentre of the breach, they made incredibly good progress. Winter watched as the yellow zone rapidly shrunk in bare minutes as hunters and soldiers fought tooth and nail to force the Grimm back step by agonising step, some unlucky soldiers were torn apart when the Grimm got too close, others were skewered by the nevermores that still dotted the sky. Yet they never stopped, inexorably the combined force pushed ever closer and closer until the tunnel itself was in sight.

Yang let loose a scream of white-hot rage, she picked up a small car with her hands and chucked it with all her might into the face of an especially large ursa as rockets flew right above her head into the dense horde of Grimm, thundering explosions opening large holes in the densely packed horde, just down the street, in the gap between two large buildings, they could see the mostly open area in front of the tunnel, and then behind that the tunnel itself. It's opening like a wide gaping maw that continued to spew forth the endless back tide that they were actively pushing against.

"I can see it!" Nora placed one hand above her eyes and peered forward.

"Me too!" Yang grinned; finally this whole ordeal would soon be over, "Alright everyone!" She turned and cupped her hands to her mouth, "One last push and we're done with this shit!" She turned back and snapped one fist forward to pulp a beowolf that got too close to her.

* * *

On a different path, Winter had chosen to fall behind and let the grunts pick up the slack while she held a more central position, using her designator to paint the larger Grimm who were then plastered by a bombardment of heavy munitions from above. This path in particular had no hunter team to provide support, but Winter reckoned –at least a little arrogantly on her part- that she would be enough support for the advance on this direction at least. Certainly if the mercenary princess were here it would probably have been even easier for them and-

 _Nope,_ Winter shook her head and focused back on the battle, _You don't have time to worry about what she could be up to at this point in time, just focus on winning the battle in front of you._ A rather large deathstalker popped up at the front of the advance and charged forward under a storm of gunfire. It rammed right into one of the Paladins and nearly toppled it over, a second Paladin came to the aid of the first, blasting it at close range to get it to back off, a rocket salvo made quick work of the Grimm.

Winter smirked, _At this rate, I don't think I'll even be needed for much longer._ It was true, the advance was holding up quite well; at this rate she might even have time to catch a lunch break.

A high-pitched screech snapped her out of her thoughts and she turned her eyes skyward just in time to see a trio of nevermores coming right down on top of them, "Incoming! Take cover!" She screamed out as the soldiers around her scattered and she drew her weapon, backing off and deflecting a few of the feathers as the nevermores flew over, someone screamed out loud as they disappeared.

"You two get him to safety!" She pointed at a pair, "Everyone else get up and keep moving!"

No one who was fighting was quite sure how much more time had passed when they found themselves finally looking at the tunnel directly from just a few hundred meters away across a stretch of open ground that was teeming with Grimm while more continued to pour out of the tunnel and into the area. They had finally cleared most of the roads out and each of the separate forces could see the others fighting to clear their avenues of approach.

"This is it!" The Specialist tensed up considerably, they were almost at the end! "Frost to Warhammer, target the tunnel entrance and seal it! We need to prevent more from coming out of it!"

"Roger Frost, just light the target up and we'll take care of it over." The cool, calm voice came over the mic.

"Ok!" Winter held up her laser designator, the red dot sighted squarely over the entrance of the tunnel, the gaping hole still pouring more black creatures out and into the streets and roads, "Target is designated!"

"Warhammer acknowledged, standby." Cannons and rocket pods were trained on the tunnel entrance itself and they let loose a stream of withering fire, rockets and shells flew right into the mouth of the tunnel, impacting in large conflagrations of fire that sent the Grimm flying in pieces all over the place even as they just kept pushing out of the hole. Unfortunately for them the tunnel would withstand that kind of assault and soon a loud rumble went through the air, with a dull cracking sound the mouth of the tunnel collapsed to the ground, loose debris crushing the Grimm and finally blocking their route.

A cry went up amongst all of the combatants from soldier to hunter at the victory, they began pushing forward ever harder to finish off the last few Grimm still in the city, "Frost to Warhammer, good effect on target! Well done everyone." She finally let out a sigh of relief, it was done, the breach was sealed and now they could-

Winter stumbled as the ground suddenly shook hard and a dull rumble sounded through the air; it put everyone on edge immediately.

"What was that?" One of the soldiers called out fearfully.

"I don't know," Winter admitted, "I think-" She was interrupted when the ground shook again and a roar like the sound of air rushing by at high speed echoed out throughout the area, it was coming right in the direction of the tunnel. The Specialist tensed up and her eyes grew wide, it seemed that they were not quite done yet, _something else_ was about to come through the collapsed tunnel right for them, and from the sound of it, it was something _big._

* * *

"I hope I'm not the only one that heard that." Weiss remarked dryly.

"I think we _all_ heard it." Blake swallowed a hard lump in her throat.

" _Goddamn_ ," Yang groaned, "What's it going to take to end this stupid shit anyway?"

"I just hope it's not anything-" Ruby was cut off at the sound of a loud trumpeting sound that made the entire area reverberate. A bare moment later and the debris blocking the tunnel exploded outward with an incredible force, grey smoke and dust spewing out over the area, raining all over the combatants, the horrible trumpeting sounded again, this time much louder as the combatants tried to collect themselves.

Charging out of the smoke and dust, with a roar like a jet engine, a pair of utterly massive beasts the size of large houses came barrelling out and into the fray, their legs trampling smaller Grimm beneath them as they ran right at the combatants. The ground shook with every step they took, their trunks raised high and their heads swinging from side to side, long tusks scattering everything in its path. Red eyes bored straight ahead as they separated and continued their stampede.

" _ARE YOU FUCKING SHITTING ME?!_ " Yang screamed her lungs out as they watched one of the utterly _massive_ beasts charge its way towards them, bashing its way through streetlights and vehicles parked at the side, Grimm, soldier and mech alike, throwing them this way and that helter-skelter all over the place.

"Everyone get out of the way!" Pyrrha yelled in turn as she ran and jumped right into a narrow alleyway with Team RWBY right behind her, the beast thundered right past with surprising speed for its size as the group scrambled to take stock of their situation.

"What the hell was that?" Yang looked around fearfully.

"I don't know, but it's going to make everything we worked for up to this point redundant, we have to stop it!" The panicked voice of Ruby sounded out.

"How?" Weiss asked, "We don't have nearly enough power to take something like that down."

"Where's Sun?" Blake suddenly piped up, and it was at that point that they realised that they had lost their male compatriots in the panic, "Sun!" Blake went to the edge of the alleyway and cried out.

"Over here Blake! We're ok!" Blake turned her head to find Sun and his team hanging of the side of a building on the opposite side of the street. Blake closed her eyes and exuded a sigh of relief.

"Oh thank god…"

"We need to slow it down somehow! Let's let the soldiers handle the breach!" Ruby was speaking quickly, "When we catch up, we'll focus on taking out its legs first…" Ruby was breathing hard, though it was more from the stress than anything else, "One last effort, let's do this team!"

"Yeah!" She was answered affirmatively.

* * *

At the same time, Winter was chasing the other beast on foot, the Grimm had smashed open their lines and was basically reopening the breach that had been closed seconds ago, she had quickly ordered Warhammer to seal it again and continue to provide overwatch while she went after the beast.

"Major Blackmore! I have a situation on my hands! A goliath has broken through the lines! It's going right for the command post!" She shouted urgently into her mic.

"Dammit! We're swamped in wounded at the moment, is there any way for you to stop it?" He replied.

"Negative, I don't have the available firepower, I've re-tasked Warhammer to provide overwatch over the immediate area around the breach, are there any other assets on station?" She asked, all the while watching the goliath trample its way through the streets, tearing up the paved roads and sidewalks as it went, crashing into lampposts, traffic lights and various abandoned vehicles.

"Ah, let me see…uh…yes!" He seemed to give a small cheer, "2nd Ground Support Wing is on station to provide support, I'll put you in contact with them, I've also alerted our reserve, they'll be ready for it."

"Alright thank you." She had chosen to go alone, leaving the frontline to hold itself while she dealt with the immediate problem, within moments she could see the roundabout, and that meant that she was running out of time.

Thinking quickly, she unsheathed her sword and activated a glyph that sent her flying through the air and right on top of the Grimm as it battered its way through the streets, it seemed to not notice her, and not entirely knowing what sort of damage she would do she slammed the blade deep into the Grimm and ground it in as best as she could.

It apparently did not feel a thing, or if it did it did not care as it continued its stampede.

 _Dammit!_ Winter cursed as she leapt off, using another glyph as a stepping stone to land on a rooftop, letting the goliath pass her by with the command post just a stone's throw away.

"Specialist Frost this is Colonel Wilder of the 2nd Ground Support Wing, we heard your call we're standing by for tasking." Her mic started chirping at her.

"And not a moment too soon Colonel!" Winter shouted into her mic, "Target is a goliath heading for the Airmobile Infantry's command post…" She could only watch as gunfire and rockets erupted from a lone Paladin that was standing right in front of the goliath's stampede, firing everything it had as Winter prepped her laser designator, "Danger close…" She muttered into the mic.

"Understood over."

Winter watched as the goliath snapped its head from one side to the other, its tusks smashed into the one paladin with the brave pilot and sent it the heavy mech hurtling across the street and smashing into a building, "Target is designated." She ground her teeth.

"Target confirmed, get your head down this is going to be loud." The calm voice came over the mic. Winter watched as the bullheads swooped down on the beast just before it hit a firing line of soldiers at the turn of the road, pelting it with rockets and machinegun fire, consuming it in smoke and flame, it roared terribly in response and halted its charge for a moment as it reared up on its hind legs and seemingly tried to swat at the aircraft as it pulled away.

Winter's jaw dropped and her eyes grew wide as the goliath seemingly shrugged off the attack as though it was nothing more than mere raindrops, "Negative effect, I say again negative effect on target." She could only say softly as she inhaled and exhaled heavily, exhausted from the constant fighting, she dearly wanted nothing more than a break at this point, even a well-trained professional like her could get exhausted with the amount of fighting she had been doing all night and all morning.

"Hang on; we're coming around for another run." The Colonel said. In the meantime, the goliath continued on though at a much reduced pace, it swatted aside the firing line as though it were a mere annoyance and continued right into the command post as others continued firing.

"We need more than just an airstrike," Winter thumbed her mic and switched channels, "This is Specialist Frost, 'Shattered Lance', I say again 'Shattered Lance' is active…"

* * *

 _ **Meanwhile,**_

"Blake! Tie up its left leg! Yang help her out! Weiss trap the other leg so I can take it out! Pyrrha, Nora distract it!" Ruby shouted out orders as all of them raced forward along the ruined road with the rest of the group. The girls were on their own again; Team SSSN having headed back to ensure the breach remained stopped up and assist the soldiers.

Blake lassoed its left hind leg with Gambol Shroud easily, however she was unprepared for the sheer force exerted on her and was thrown forward with incredible force and dragged along when the goliath moved. Grunting in frustration she righted herself and was able to regain her balance as she was dragged on her feet, her boots grinding into the road as she held fast to the large Grimm.

"Hang on Blake! Weiss boost me!" In moments Yang was launched away and very nearly avoided crashing into her partner as the Grimm's movements dragged her about erratically, she seized hold of the long fabric and tugged back as hard as she could. Now both were being dragged along with the Grimm, but the sudden addition of Yang's strength caused it to stumble a little and it howled angrily. It suddenly stopped and turned its head to look behind, its glowing red eyes boring holes into the two huntresses.

"Oh I'm watching you, you bastard." A low growl from the blonde brawler, her own eyes lighted in a crimson red. It began turning slowly, all the while keeping its gaze fixed firmly on the two huntresses.

"Uh…Ruby?!" Blake cried out, suddenly feeling real fear for her chances of survival.

"Now Weiss!" With that order Weiss immobilized the other hind leg with her last dust cartridge, and then formed a glyph to boost Ruby, "Here I go!" The reaper swung around in a wide arc and slammed her scythe into the leg, aiming to make a clean cut and disable the Grimm in a single blow. At the same time, Pyrrha and Nora flanked the goliath on both sides trying to make a dent in its impressively thick hide.

Unfortunately it did not quite work out; she hit the leg alright, except all her weapon did was get its blade embedded into the leg…and not much else really.

"What?" She gaped in astonishment, "Well that's never happened before…" She muttered she pulled back with all her might, only to realise that her beloved Crescent Rose was now stuck in the Grimm, "Oh… _carpfish_." Her eyes widened considerably, panic set in as she desperately tried to wrench it free as Nora tried to bash it from the side and Pyrrha tried to shoot its face to distract it.

Meanwhile, the Grimm remained still, it almost seemed to be watching the huntresses as they futilely tried to hurt it, it continued looking right at Yang and Blake, making the both of them feel very uncomfortable as they continued trying to pull it off balance. All of a sudden it lifted the hind leg they were pulling on and jerked it forward. It all happened so fast that neither Yang nor Blake had time to react to it properly.

Yang lost her grip and was merely thrown forward and onto her front, but Blake had one arm secured to Gambol Shroud, so she was hurled right towards the Grimm and landed just behind its leg. The beast shifted backwards and prepared to crush to crush the Faunus with its foot, Blake reacted quickly, a clone appeared from her and she immediately pushed away from it, barely missing the hard stomp that left a small crater in the ground as she struggled to unwind her weapon from the leg.

"Ruby let go!" Weiss screamed from the back, as the reaper continued pulling desperately on her weapon, "It's going to-" And then the Grimm made its move, while Blake and Ruby were occupied and everyone else helpless to do much, its right hind leg broke free of the ice and it began trying to crush Blake with it, moving around in circles as it did while the Faunus artfully dodged its slower movements, Ruby was not nearly as swift, she clung to her weapon as she was thrown about to and fro.

"Whoa!" Ruby was finally thrown clean of the weapon and crashed into the ground harshly crying out in pain.

Blake however, was still in trouble as she tried to weave in-between the legs again and again, this time however, Nora charged its front and was able to land a solid hit right on its face, that finally seemed to do something as the goliath reared up on its hind legs, its trunk failing wildly as it trumpeted in pain. That gave Blake just the opening she needed as she finally unwound Gambol Shroud and quickly retreated, holding her arm painfully.

"You alright?" Yang quickly knelt down as Blake nursed her arm.

"I thought it was going to rip my arm off!" Blake was gasping and breathing heavily from her brush with the Grimm.

"It's on its hind legs, everyone hit the right leg! Quickly!" Ruby hurriedly cried out, unfortunately there was not much anyone had to hit it with, with Yang still out of ammo and Ruby disarmed, none of them had the available power, forcing them to retreat away as the Grimm as it descended back down on all fours with an incredible force, shaking the buildings around and making the group stumble a little.

"Gals, we need a different plan, we're not stopping this thing anytime soon…" Pyrrha noted, the strain of the fighting was beginning to show on her face.

"We just don't have the raw power for it." Weiss agreed with a grim look on her face.

"We can't give up now!" Ruby insisted, "The people are depending on us, what will it say about us if we just back off now?"

"There has to be some kind of weak point," Blake seethed as she continued massaging her sprained arm, "We need…" And then she noticed something, "Uh…gals?" She said as she slowly began backing away, "Why…why is it looking at us like that?" The goliath was advancing very slowly and deliberately on them now, one step at a time, as if it were gauging them. The group backed up as slowly as it did, keeping their weapons up, it seemed to regard them almost curiously as it took one last step before stopping. The group went tense, trying to anticipate what would happen next.

And then it charged with _horrifying_ speed.

It was on them in mere seconds, the group scattered immediately as it swung its head in a wide arc, Ruby and Pyrrha ducked into an alleyway as Blake and Weiss rushed to higher ground on the opposite side while Yang and Nora backed off. The beast stopped and turned to…glare? At Ruby and Pyrrha, its menacing gaze boring right through them before it rammed its head repeatedly into the gap, shaking the buildings and the walls surrounding the two loose with every pound.

"Ruby!" Yang yelled, "Dammit!" She charged forward heedless of her own safety, her little sister was in trouble and that was all that she needed to act. Nora was close behind as both tried again to bring the Grimm down, Yang slamming her fists into one leg and Nora trying to bend the other, to no such luck as the beast remained almost impassive to their attempts, it was simply too big and too heavy to take down.

Pyrrha lifted her shield up to block falling debris while Ruby stood under her.

 _We're trapped, no way out of this…_ She thought frantically, trying to look for an opening that might allow them to escape, unfortunately it was looking more and more likely that they would be crushed before that happened.

 _I'm sorry Jaune, at least you knew of my feelings before-_ Her train of thought came to an abrupt halt when the shaking stopped and the Grimm roared loudly and backed away from the gap between the buildings as rapid gunfire like the sound of tearing linoleum echoed out.

"C'mon Ruby! We're free!" She tugged the slightly dazed Ruby out of the alleyway and into the open just in time for the roar of a jet engine to sound right above her, she snapped her head skyward to see a bullhead with its doors open.

And standing right in the doorway hammering away at the goliath with her impressively large minigun was none other than Coco Adel, Team CFVY's leader with the rest of her team jumping out of the bullhead, hurtling headlong into the fight.

* * *

 _ **Back at the roundabout,**_

The goliath had really torn the airmobile infantry a new one, without the necessary firepower it tore its way right through the firing lines and was now in the middle of the roundabout as soldiers futilely shot at it with their rifles that may as well have been peashooters in the face of the sheer size of the Grimm as it rampaged about, destroying aid stations and killing dozens in its attack. Winter could only watch the carnage helplessly from the roof of a building. All of a sudden she wished that the mercenary was with her, the latter could probably pull off some kind of crazy trickshot to nail and disable the goliath in a single blow, but unfortunately trying to find her at this point was not an option.

What _was_ an option of the support being diverted onto her position; numerous gunships were now entering the area responding to her 'Shattered Lance' call, and now she finally had the chance to retaliate as she held up her laser designator with the goliath firmly in its sights.

"Frost to all airborne assets, target is now designated! _Light that fucker up with everything you have_!" Winter shouted into her mic, a cry to the skies for the Atlesian Military to respond.

And boy did they respond as Winter looked on.

Every single gunship in the sector simultaneously trained its multiple batteries of missile launchers, autocannons and howitzers on the rampaging goliath on the road below. The sound of all of that ordnance being unleashed onto a single target was utterly deafening, a mad cacophony of explosions completely plastered the massive creature in smoke and fire. Its own painful roars echoed out loudly across the streets and buildings as it was pummelled relentlessly from the air by every type of heavy weapon available to the Atlesian Military, due to the built up area stray shots occasionally diverted into the buildings around it, showering the area with dust and debris.

The goliath reared up on its hind legs and roared as the gunships continued firing without let-up, a missile curved under and hit the beast on its underside, and that proved to be the final blow as the best toppled and fell to its side screaming horribly under the weight of fire. It came down to the ground so heavily it shook the very earth under it, and even then the gunships did not let-up, the block of apartments on both sides of the road around the Grimm was disintegrated into rubble as the gunships pounded the area again and again.

Hoping that it was enough, Winter began speaking into her mic again, "Ceasefire! Ceasefire!" She shouted. This was still a city that they had sworn to protect; it would not do to completely level it into the ground while at the same time trying to save it. The guns fell silent and everyone watched with baited breath, waiting for the dust to settle so that they could determine the results of their aerial firepower against a single, large Grimm.

And as the dust finally cleared, the results were clear; absolutely nothing remained of the Grimm, just a series of large craters dotting the ground that it had been on and the ruins that surrounded it to serve as a testament.

"Target has been neutralized, good job everyone!" Winter allowed herself a small smile of victory, "That's one less thing to worry about; all airborne assets switch to light munitions, let's clear out and secure this sector!" She ordered sharply to a round of affirmation, with the last real obstacle down, they were well on their way to victory.

Winter was sure of it.

 _But where's Annie?_ She wondered in the back of her head, the mercenary had simply upped and disappeared from her sight in the chaos of the battle and the Specialist found herself wondering what had become of her wayward companion. She hoped that in the very least, the mercenary princess had decided to disappear from the scene and find her own way back to the Royal Enclaves and not decide to become another problem for her to deal with.

At that moment, her scroll chose to start ringing; she fished it out of her pocket and rolled her eyes when she saw that it was the exact person that she had been thinking about, with a sigh she tapped the button to connect.

"Hey, _where the fuck_ have you been all this time?" Winter frowned and asked in an annoyed tone of voice.

* * *

As the Atlesian Military finally felled one goliath, the Beacon hunters were just in the process of felling the next. The arrival of Team CFVY finally gave the opening needed to push the Grimm back, Fox Alistair, Blake, Weiss and Pyrrha danced between its legs as Nora, Yang and Yatsuhashi pummelled it with hammer, fists and blade. Coco had dropped off of the bullhead in the meantime and made sure that the goliath remained suppressed and unable to fight back effectively against the withering barrage of attacks it was suffering from.

"Keep hitting it!" Coco yelled over the sound of her own gunfire, "We've almost got it!" Ruby meanwhile ran circles around the Grimm, trying to look for an opportunity to get her scythe –which was still stuck in its right hind leg- back. The Grimm shook to and fro and roared in anger at the constant assault, it slowly reared up on its hind legs again and…

"Now!" Coco cried out, "All in! Everyone hit its legs! Bring it down!"

With a warcry, everyone simultaneously attacked its legs, Yatsuhashi stabbed his sword right into a leg and ripped it out with a yell, tearing off a sizable chunk of it. That proved to finally be the tipping point, the Grimm lost its balance and toppled to the ground hard enough to shake the earth and buildings around it, immediately everyone targeted its face even as it continued to struggle weakly and flail about on its side, but it was too much, Ruby gave the signal for the final blow.

"Weiss! Boost Yang and Nora! Finish it!" She screamed out, Yang and Nora exchanged a nod as Weiss powered up her glyph for what would hopefully be the final time of the day and sent both brawler and the hammer maiden through the air right onto the face of the goliath. Gauntlet and hammer impacted simultaneously, the head of the goliath caved in and it jerked one last time before it went still.

Yang and Nora fell off the beast breathing heavily as the dust finally began to settle.

"Is it…" Pyrrha gasped out, "Is it over?" Just a small piece of hope and as the Grimm began to dissipate, everyone collectively let out a sigh of relief.

"It's over." Blake confirmed, her throat parched and dry from the sheer exertion of the battle.

"Woohoo, go team…" Yang held up one fist to the sky as she lay on her back exhausted and panting, Nora right beside her.

"Sis, you alright?" Ruby walked to her, having finally retrieved her scythe

"Holy crap Ruby that was a _goddamn_ bitch and a half!" Yang started swearing in-between gasps of air, "I'm better than 'alright' Rubes," She sniffed and took a deep breath, "I'm so fucking awesome." She grinned brightly.

" _We're_ awesome." Ruby corrected.

" _Damn_ ," Coco lowered her sunglasses, "you know I think you're all set for the rest of this year's credit juniors." She grinned at them.

"I hope so…" Yang breathed out as the rest of the group took seats wherever they were, the sun was now high and bright in the sky and it was shining down on top of all of them, the black specks that once dotted it had largely been cleared out. They stayed like this in silence for a long time, all totally exhausted from the fighting.

"Man leader and Renny really missed out on this one." Nora said as she held one hand over her face to shield her eyes from the sun, "I can't wait to see their faces when we tell them we fought that thing." Pyrrha nodded in turn.

"You know a bunch of years from now when we graduate," Coco spoke up, "I think we're all going to look back on this as the highlight of our time in Beacon, because I don't think anything else, not the end of second-year mission or graduation mission is going to come close to this."

As they exchanged small talk and friendly banter between themselves, another bullhead flew overhead and landed just a short distance away, they all looked up from where they were sitting as the doors opened and out stepped…Professor Oobleck? He quickly zipped over to where they were looking them over.

"Hey professor," Yang waved, "What's up?"

"That's doctor to you Ms. Xiao Long," Professor Oobleck straightened his glasses, "And I'm sorry to have to cut your break short but I…have some bad news for the lot of you." He looked rather apologetic as everyone went tense.

"What's happened doctor?" Pyrrha asked.

"The situation has been stabilised but we're not really out of the woods yet. The Grimm in the city was not the only problem the breach caused, activity all along the perimeter of the city also increased drastically and we need to move quickly to clear them out now." A series of stifled groans and clicked tongues came out of the group.

"Professor-" Weiss began but was cutoff with a sharp glare from Oobleck, "Err…I mean Doctor, I don't mean any disrespect, but we just killed a _goliath_."

"Indeed you have, a feat certainly worthy of the books, perhaps far more than your victory over the manticore," There was a smile on the doctor's face, and he was clearly beaming with pride, "But a hunter's work is never done! So come on children!" He clapped his hands, "Up and at 'em, we still have a battle to win."

Everyone exchanged exhausted looks, Ruby spoke up first, "Alright gang you heard the doctor," She gave a great sigh, "Let's get to it." She used her scythe to pull herself to a standing position.

"Ain't no rest for the weary huh?" Yang cocked a tired smile, "Looks like it's time for clean-up gals." She banged her fists together as Team RWBYPR gripped their weapons with determined looks on their faces and prepared to re-join the fight.

The scale of the Grimm invasion meant that the "clean-up" lasted well into the late afternoon; although the interior of the city itself was cleaned out fairly quickly on its own, the sheer amounts of negativity that had been unleashed with the breach had caused the Grimm to build up into exceptionally dense concentrations all around the city itself in the space of just an hour. The direct result of that was that fighting continued well into until sundown as hunters both professional and trainee as well as soldiers of the Atlesian Military sought to wipe out these concentrations around the perimeter as quickly as possible before more could form. Thankfully none of these small "mini-hordes" were able to get into the heart of the city and were annihilated at the outskirts easily as the sun finally began to set on the seemingly endless and bloody day.

With the sun lowering itself and shadows beginning to grow darker and longer, the citizens of the city finally set about cleaning up the streets filled with rubble and collecting their dead and wounded. Painful, mournful cries echoed out over the city as men and women were reunited with the mangled remains of their loved ones, the outpouring of such grief meant that even with the perimeter cleared, Grimm continued to encroach on the city's borders in numbers, ensuring that everyone would be kept busy long past daylight.

And yet as the skies grew dim and were tinged with red, nearly everyone was able to attain a sense that the horrible day had finally ended.

It had been the longest day of anyone's lives.

* * *

 **Please god oh god why make it stop! PLEASE!**

 **I was thinking at first: "I don't want this to drag on to much", but then there was SO MUCH material for me to use and SO MUCH I wanted to write and cover and I was like, "I really gotta finish this thing" but then oh wait! More ideas for me to use and then so on and so forth and the thing just kept on growing and growing and I was like when will this chapter ever end?**

 **EVER.**

 **Usually the moment I hit the five-digit figure count for words, I usually think that's about it and I should try to stop, but then there's just so much left to do that I just keep going on and on without a conceivable end in sight. That was like the worst thing ever to do, and just in case you thought that was all of it, here's a bunch of stuff that I actually left out:**

 **1\. Vulcan and co. appearing to dropoff ammo and assist in the fight, cue Vulcan's angry cursing "WHY THE FUCK ARE THERE SO MANY FUCKING TYPES OF FUCKING AMMO!" and yelling.**

 **2\. Annie assisting Team RWBYPR from faraway with a well-timed shot to the Goliath's eyes that would blind it, Ruby would see her as a 'dark lonely figure in the distance', this would carry over into future chapters.**

 **3\. What Disciple team was doing at Mount Glenn**

 **4\. What Gravelyn has been up to**

 **5\. Jaune and Ren making it to a casualty clearing area.**

 **Some of this I'm saving for the next chapter via flashbacks and such.**

 **I wanted to call some attention to the more nitty gritty aspects of such an event, I wanted to push Ruby and maybe Pyrrha's development, force the former to make uncomfortable decisions -that will be explored in time- and make the latter emote a little more. This is all going to have repercussions in V3 when it comes knocking.**

 **For the rest of the chapter, I did not want it to just end with "And we sealed the breach and happily ever after." Since I was going to go all the way anyway, I thought why not introduce the goliath that we did not see Winter encountering when she was at Mountain Glenn? And I thought wouldn't it be cool if Team RWBYPR fought it down? Oh wait wouldn't it be better if Team CFVY showed up for a ten-hunter smackdown? Wouldn't it be better if the MCs were placed in an actually dangerous situation?**

 **And if it seems like the last part is really rushed...that's because it kind of is? I was getting tired of writing and I wanted to move on to the next chapter already, this was supposed to have come up last week but it continued to drag on sadly enough.**

 **Now some of you might ask why I allow the Atlesian Military to get off so lightly with their goliath, I would say its because ultimately there's enough description of gore and brutality that I decided that it was enough to just let it rampage for a bit before Winter decides to sic the entire Atlesian Air Force on it.**

 **Off topic, I honestly think EVERYONE should attend a basic first aid course at least once in their lives, like just teaching you how to dress and bandage wounds and place unconscious people in the proper position so they don't suffocate and die, also how to CPR properly (And not just pound the chest like in movies) and how to operate a defibrillator (The civilian kind, not the hospital kind). Since Jaune is military-trained in this AU (First couple lines of chapter one if anyone wants to find out where), he ought to know how to at least check people for various wounds.**

 **And now for something else, a chapter or so ago I made an omake detailing a 'what-if' of Team RWBY getting tried in court, now "Le Mao XVII" kindly suggested developing it a little further using the Phoenix Wright franchise, being unfamiliar with it I suggested he could try, and so he came up with this for me. It's mostly unedited, I thought it was pretty good myself, the only real changes were formatting and some grammar things.**

 **So do thank him if you enjoyed it.**

* * *

 **Omake: Royal Turnabout**

The hearing had not favored Team RWBY in the slightest, resulting in the matter going to court.

Ozpin had immediately gotten the best lawyer he could find.

Phoenix Wright.

With his history in the courtroom, perhaps he could find a way to get Team RWBY acquitted?

Alas…it was not as easy as one might think.

Phoenix Wright was currently sweating bullets at the moment.

He thought the claim he made just now would work…but let's face it, it was farfetched even for him.

And now, his clients, Team RWBY, were about to be convicted for the Highway 42 Incident. Unless Phoenix could think of another avenue to take, these four young girls would have their lives ruined with the bang of a gavel.

But what could he do? Even thinking outside the box wasn't working! And there wouldn't be any help from the royal family, if "Jaune" was correct.

…

…

Wait…Jaune! That's it!

If Phoenix came out and exposed Jaune as Prince Jean of Armorica, then he can claim that Ruby and Blake were only investigating the White Fang in order to protect the Prince, with Weiss and Yang simply tagging along under the belief that they were on a secret mission!

Phoenix had learned of the Jaune's secret identity by doing some investigating. When he had decided to question Ruby or Blake about what he learned, they denied it and clammed up…which had revealed some Psyche-Locks. Using evidence to break the Psych-Locks, he got the two girls to admit that Jaune was Prince Jean of Armorica….

Of course, they then decided to ask the lawyer to keep quiet about it under the attorney/client confidentiality privilege, barring Phoenix from using it.

But now….

"Your Honor," Phoenix said. "Before you give a verdict, may I speak with two of my clients for a moment?"

The bald judge thought it over, then turned to the prosecution.

"Mr. Edgeworth, do you have any objection to this?"

Said red-clothed prosecutor was taping his arm with his finger in thought.

"…I have no objection, your Honor," Miles Edgeworth finally said. "Let the defense calm the defendants as they face their guilty verdict."

The judge nodded. "Very well, Mr. Wright. You may speak with your clients. But make it quick!"

With a nod, Phoenix pulled Ruby and Blake aside.

"Alright you two…I'm thinking of exposing Jaune as Prince Jean."

Ruby gasped, while Blake glared.

"Y-You can't do that!" Ruby exclaimed. "It's supposed to be a secret!"

Blake crossed her arms. "We've already told you to keep quiet about it. Attorney/client confidentiality privilege, remember?"

Phoenix gave a stern frown. "Look, this is the only thing I've got left. I'm out of ideas!"

Both widened their eyes in shock at him.

"If I don't do this, then you two and your teammates are going to be found guilty and sent to prison! Are you really willing to go to jail to protect your friend?"

Ruby and Blake looked at each other worriedly….

Blake sighed. "If that's how it has to be."

Ruby slumped. "T-Then so be it…Jaune's done so much for us! We can't just turn our backs on him just to get out of this."

Ruby glanced over at Jaune, who had been watching the argument from afar. He may not have been able to hear them…but he could make a wild guess as to what they were talking about.

Phoenix glared. "Does that include taking Weiss and Yang with you?"

Once again, their eyes widened in shock.

"Do you really think it's fair that they be sent to prison just so Jaune's identity can be kept a secret, especially when they don't even know about it?"

Ruby and Blake suddenly looked unsure…and guilty.

He was right. They couldn't do that to Weiss and Yang. It would be unfair.

But could they really throw Jaune under the bus?

…

…

"OBJECTION!"

Everyone gasped at the sudden shout, each relevant person in the courtroom giving a look of shock towards the witness stand, specifically who was standing there….

Jaune Arc.

Ruby put a hand to her mouth in shock. "J-Jaune?"

Jaune was silent for a moment."

"…Ruby, Blake…it's okay."

Both of them gasped.

Jaune smiled. "I know what Mr. Wright is planning to do…and I agree."

Blake stuttered. "B-But-."

"I couldn't live with myself if you four went to prison because I chose to do nothing."

Jaune gave a deep breath. "So…as you two are my guards, I'm ordering you to let Mr. Wright expose me!"

Everyone looked confused as to what Jaune said, none more so than his team, Weiss, and Yang.

What was he talking about?

Ruby and Blake remained silent as they mulled over Jaune's command.

…

…

…

Blake sighed. "Oh alright."

Ruby slumped. "O-Okay."

Phoenix nodded to Jaune. "Thank you."

Jaune nodded back.

The judge seemed confused. "Er, pardon me, but…just what are you two talking about?"

"Well, Your Honor," Phoenix began. "I've been allowed to make a claim based on some knowledge from two of my clients."

"OBJECTION!"

Edgeworth slammed his table. "Are you kidding me, Mr. Wright?! Just accept that your clients are guilty and be done with it!"

"OBJECTION!"

Phoenix shook his head. "Sorry, Edgeworth, but the claim I'm about to make-."

He smirked with his hands on his hips. "Will turn this case upside down!"

The judge looked intrigued. "Hmm…very well, Mr. Wright. What is this claim that you are about to make?"

Phoenix took a deep breath to gather his thoughts….

"You see, your Honor…the real reason Team RWBY were there at that White Fang base…was because…."

Phoenix slammed his hands to the table. "Because two of the girls were investigating in order to protect the prince they're guarding!"

The judge blinked. "Wha…WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!"

"OBJECTION!"

Edgeworth slammed his hand to the table. "A prince? Really, Mr. Wright? That's the best you can come up with?"

Weiss and Yang looked confused, while Ruby and Blake simply stayed quiet.

"M-Mr. Wright!" the judge exclaimed. "Explain yourself this instant!"

"Gladly, Your Honor," Phoenix said. "You see, Ruby Rose and Blake Belladonna, along with another student, were made the official guardians of Prince Jean of Armorica. When the White Fang started acting up, they feared for the Prince's safety, so they chose to investigate the White Fang."

The judged hummed. "Hmm, is this true Miss Rose and Miss Belladonna?"

Ruby and Blake did nothing for a few short seconds…then nodded.

"Yes."

"It's true."

Weiss and Yang stared in confused disbelief.

"OBJECTION!"

Edgeworth chuckled and shook his head. "Oh really, Mr. Wright? Is that the claim you're going with? You realize that the actual prince would have to verify this, and he's not even here!"

Phoenix simply smirked with his hands on his hips, something Edgeworth didn't like.

He scowled. "Oh you've got to be kidding me!"

"Yup!" Phoenix confirmed. "Prince Jean of Armorica is here in this very courtroom!"

Everyone gasped and began to look around for the supposed prince. Even the judge joined in.

"Oh where?! Where is he?!"

"First the king, and now a prince?! This can't get any better!"

Edgeworth huffed. "Very well, Mr. Wright. I'll call your little bluff. Bring out this 'prince'."

"Gladly…Mr. Arc?"

Jaune made his way to the stand.

Edgeworth deadpanned. "…Seriously, Mr. Wright? Sure, this man may have blonde hair and blue eyes, but do you really expect us to believe this is Prince Jean of Armorica?"

Weiss and Yang, along with the rest of Jaune's team in the stands, were completely lost at this point.

"J-Jaune?" Pyrrha stuttered.

"Mr. Arc," the judge began. "Do you know anything about this supposed prince?"

Jaune closed his eyes, took a deep breath…and let it out.

"The prince Mr. Wright is referring to…is me."

He opened his eyes. "I am Prince Jean of Armorica."

Elsewhere, the blood vessels in the eyes of certain royal family members burst in anger.

Edgeworth frowned. "Forgive me, but I hardly think a scrawny student like you could actually be Prince Jean of-."

"Ahem."

Everyone turned to find two guards in front of "Jaune". Two guards that were still here.

Two guards that everyone knew to be the Kings' personal guards.

Daniel and Dahlia.

"We would highly appreciate it-." Daniel began.

"-if you didn't insult the Prince," Dahlia finished.

Everyone's eyes widened, while Ruby and Blake simply sighed, feeling guilty that the secret was out. Phoenix simply looked smug.

Edgworth grinded his teeth as he leaned on his desk. "N-No…t-this cannot be!"

The judge blinked in shock. "M-Mr. Arc-?"

"Hold that thought, Your Honor."

"Jaune" turned to the two guards. "I know you only serve the King himself…but would you mind-?"

Daniel and Dahlia nodded. "Of course, my prince."

Suddenly, a curtain surrounded "Jaune", and the two guards began moving about within, the sounds of clothes being removed and replaced with something else.

After a few short seconds, the curtain moved and the guards left, leaving "Jaune" alone on the stand….

Only, he wore clothing of a different kind.

The finest clothing that existed.

Royal clothing.

"Jaune" know looked like the prince he actually was.

The jaws of the friends of Jaune who didn't know he was a prince collectively dropped to the ground.

Ruby and Blake smiled a little. He looked good in royal garb.

Edgeworth's teeth ground together so hard, you could hear them cracking.

The judge simply blinked in shock.

Phoenix grinned.

"Jaune" took a deep breath….

"To correct you, Your Honor," "Jaune" began. "Jaune Arc is the name my friends and teachers…as well as Mr. Wright, if he so wishes…and you as well, Your Honor, since you've been nothing but fair for the entirety."

The judge cleared his throat. "Why thank you, Mr. Arc."

Edgworth growled. "Mr. Arc, wha-?"

"As. I. Was. Saying," Jaune gritted out. "Only those few have the privilege of calling me by that name."

He visibly straightened as he turned to Edgeworth, his voice taking on a commanding tone.

"You, Mr. Edgeworth, may address me as… _your highness_."

* * *

 **There you have it! Hopefully I can get one more chapter out before November ends!**

 **I appreciate all your reviews! Faves and Follows!**


	32. The Weeping Sky

**I guess I couldn't really make the November deadline huh?**

 **Sorry about that,**

 **I'm not too sure what to say about this chapter, certainly by far I'm glad that it's a great deal shorter than the previous one, god forbid I make writing 20,000 word chapters a habit.**

 ***Shiver***

 **I hope this chapter did not go into the stupid "grimdark" territory, it should have just a few rays of hope amidst all the death.**

 **Well I hope you enjoy.**

* * *

 _This evening as the sun sets, the city of Vale can finally attain some measure of peace and time to mourn and bury the dead. Officials have yet to state the total number of casualties both civilian and military, claiming that it has not yet been properly established with major fighting still taking place around the perimeter and that to speculate would do a disservice to the dead and only invite unwanted rumors, some estimates however project that as many as five hundred people alone may have been killed in the attack with an unknown number of wounded. Atlesian soldiers and hunters have continued to sweep the Residential District searching for any remaining signs of Grimm activity although it is believed that with the tunnel to the old Mountain Glenn expansion firmly sealed; the primary threat to the city has been eliminated. Early tomorrow morning representatives from the Atlesian Military and Beacon Academy will be issuing a joint statement…_

"How're you holding up Ren?" The person in question looked up at his leader who was staring down at him, in one hand he held out what looked like an ice pack, exactly the thing that Ren needed at the moment.

Ren took the ice pack readily and held it to his head with a grunt as Jaune sat down beside him slowly and hugged his knees to his chest, observing the only other male figure in their circle of friends as the latter let out a mildly satisfied sigh of contentment as he pressed the ice pack to his head and leaned back against the wall, "How's your head? Still swimming?" He bumped Ren's shoulder a little.

The other boy scoffed at the question, "Crawling more like. It's definitely seen better days." Jaune snickered at the remark. The two lapsed into a comfortable silence as they looked over the casualty clearing station from their position leaning against the outside wall of a shophouse as medics and doctors worked to sort the wounded and the dead, the cries of family members mourning their dead could be heard all around them.

Both of them shivered at a particularly painful wail; both turned their heads to the side, seeing one Atlesian soldier being held up by two others, he was hobbling forward one leg at a time, the other leg was a bloody stump below the knee. His helmet was off, and his face a tormented expression of agony and anguish as they slowly laid him down on a stretcher, he was groaning and moaning the entire time as they did so, a medic quickly set to work on him treating his wounds.

"Ugh…Dammit…" Ren sucked in his lips and tore his eyes away from the sight; it was too painful to watch for him.

"We can go somewhere else if it hurts that much." Jaune quietly said, just loud enough for Ren to hear him, "To see all of this." Ren turned to shoot him a look, but his leader's blue eyes were soft, and evidently radiated a clear concern for him. Ren opened his mouth to say something, but it opened and closed emptily as words failed him and he could only slowly turn his head to look back at the scene before them.

"Isn't it…" He began slowly, trying to find the words to use, "Isn't it… _harder_ for you?" He asked, "I mean…seeing all this again?" Ren was doing his best to remain tactful; it was unspoken rule that Jaune's family was mostly off-limits as a topic for discussion.

Jaune remained silent for a moment as he contemplated Ren's question, he let go of his knees and let his legs fall to the ground, "You know…to my own surprise…I…" He struggled for a moment, "I found myself taking it…well, I'm alright personally…" He trailed off uncertainly as Ren shot him another look.

"You're _fine_ with this?" Ren looked quite disgusted, "You're not bothered seeing all of this?" He gestured with a sweeping arm, clearing looking for an explanation for his leader's words.

Jaune took in a deep breath and looked away and up into the sky, where the sun was rapidly beginning to sink below the clouds, its last rays fading from view, ending the horrible day as it had begun in the early dawn hours. Dark clouds were beginning to gather, so not only would night soon be upon them, but so would rain.

"I've seen it before," Jaune said simply as Ren's eyes went wide, "This isn't new to me, I…I guess you could call it desensitization?" He looked at Ren out of the corner of his eyes, the other male seemed to develop a bashful expression and cast his eyes downward.

"I'm sorry," Ren said, "I…I didn't mean it that way." He let the arm holding up the ice pack fall to the ground.

"It's alright." Jaune answered, they lapsed once more into a comfortable silence. A loud sobbing broke out, and they saw a young woman hugging a bloody figure tightly to her chest, wailing loudly and crying brokenly, beside them was a young girl, also hanging on to the. Man and crying as well.

They could only watch in silence as the broken family wept and mourned one of their own, they were not the only ones, others –men and women, old and young- were walking slowly through the rows of dead and wounded in the distance, trying to identify mangled and mauled remains as best as they could.

"Where are…" Ren began slowly while closing his eyes, grimacing as a sharp spike of pain went through his temple, "Where are Nora and Pyrrha now?" He asked, looking away and trying to distract himself from the scene.

"Professor Goodwitch needed their help for some heavy lifting, probably clearing some rubble." Jaune's voice remained even and level albeit rather soft, Ren nodded in acknowledgement, "Professor Port took Team RWBY out to help sweep out the remaining concentrations of Grimm, with any luck they should be done soon."

"…Come to think of it, where have _you_ been all this while? I haven't seen you in the last few hours." Ren had decided on sitting down at the side to rest and not moving until he was good enough to, he had sort of fallen asleep momentarily, waking only to find Jaune having seemingly disappeared from his sight. A hoarse laugh escaped from Jaune's throat as he held his hands palms up in front of him, Ren's eyes went wide on seeing them and his jaw opened slightly.

They were covered in dried blood; Ren looked over the rest of his leader and only then noticed that his leader's normally pristine white armor plates had streaks of dried blood on them, his arm brace had what looked like part of a bloody handprint on it.

Jaune noticed what he was looking at, "Casualties are pouring in from the front, there is a shortage of medics to treat the wounded at the station over there," He explained while nodding to a large tent in the distance, "Since you knocked out, I volunteered to help them out, I came back after the Chief Medical Officer told me to take a break."

"Oh, I…" Ren started but was at a loss for words, "I'm…" He chose to stop talking instead.

"It's nothing much really." Jaune replied gently.

They fell into silence once again, until Ren spoke up again.

"Hey Jaune, do you…mind if I ask you something?" He asked, keeping his head down.

"…Sure." Jaune replied after a short pause.

"Was it…this bad?" Ren asked with a guarded tone in his voice, "When Armorica was breached?" He swallowed hard when he saw Jaune's eyes go wide for a moment and immediately started backpedaling, "I mean…you don't have to if it's too hard for you…I…" He sighed and shook his head, "I'm sorry, t-that was a mistake, I shouldn't have brought it up-"

"It was worse." Came a sullen reply, " _Far_ worse than this." Jaune swallowed tightly, all of the unpleasant memories being brought back to him. He faced Ren and sighed, "We have no hunters of our own in the Royal Enclaves, and with the Royal Legion having been attacked simultaneously, it was up to the people themselves and the militia who fought tooth and nail with whatever we had…for our own sake." He explained as easily as he could.

"No hunters? Not even traveling ones?" Ren was quite curious.

"No, it's not like Armorica is _that_ great a place to live in anyway, I mean…well…" Jaune shrugged, "Any hunter could definitely do better than simply choosing to live in my city." He tried to crack a joke.

"Why though?" Ren's eyebrows jumped, "How is Armorica?"

"It's kind of dull…and dark…and its always drizzling." Jaune flatly stated, "Plus outsiders aren't exactly the most welcome in our city, that much I can say for sure."

"Oh." And just like that they fell silent again, but before Ren could think of something else with which they could continue the conversation, Jaune spoke up first.

"Since we're on the topic of my home, it's only fair that you trade a little about yourself, where do you and Nora come from Ren?" He asked, to Ren's surprise his leader now wore a thin smile on his face as he spoke.

"Ah well…that's…" Ren pursed his lips.

"Well you don't have to say it either if it's…y'know…difficult for you too." Jaune tried to cover for himself, leading to a smirk from Ren.

"It's fine actually, I just meant that it's a little complicated that's all."

"Complicated in the good way or the bad way?"

"Is making things complicated ever the good way?"

Jaune seemed to seriously ponder this question for a while as he furrowed his brow and directed his gaze earthward and then he let out a chuckle, "I guess not…no I don't suppose it is huh?"

Ren leaned back and faced upwards as well, watching the last of the sun's rays slowly fade out of the sky leaving it red, "You know…I remember you saying that your uncle ran a family business with your sister after your parents disappeared…erm…a law firm was it?"

Jaune looked at Ren curiously out of the corner of his eye, "Something like that. What about it?"

"So…I don't know why I'm thinking about it…" Ren gave a short laugh, "Maybe it's because I got hit on the head really hard and all the crap we took a few hours ago, but what're you going to do after we graduate from Beacon?"

"…That's a _really_ long way off Ren." Jaune narrowed his eyes slightly.

"I know but…" Ren clicked his tongue, "huh, I guess getting put in a near-death experience just makes you think about…things."

"Well first of all…" Jaune adjusted his seating position with a grunt, letting himself slouch down against the wall into a more comfortable position, "I'm going to have to get the whole lot of us all _through_ Beacon first…and then after that…" He trailed off uncertainly.

 _After that I part of my life preparing to take over a senior leadership position somewhere in Armorica, and then I spend the rest of my life in that position until the day that I die, maybe somewhere along the line I might fall in love, get married and have a bunch of kids half of whom will rebel against our family with the other half accepting their place and continuing on our proud and glorious legacy…hurrah._ His thought process continued the sentence for him in his head, _or maybe I'll die alone and Jasmine will be able to get with someone, and her children will take the reins instead._

"After that?" Ren's words brought him back to reality.

"Maybe go back to my home and stay there to protect the city so that nothing like what happened two years ago will ever happen again." Jaune said with a hard swallow.

 _Two years in the Royal Legion, maybe I'll get a position at commander or something if I'm lucky enough, and then spend the rest of my life filing paperwork I suppose._ He almost giggled at the thought but suppressed it into a smirk.

"…I see." Ren seemed satisfied with that answer.

"What about you Ren? What're you planning on doing?" Now it was Jaune's turn to prod the other male.

"I'm…not too sure to be honest," He shrugged and sighed, "I suppose it's better for me to leave that bridge to when I cross it." He gave Jaune a weak smile.

 _Who knows, you might even be crossing it with Nora._ For some reason Jaune felt that it was better to let that part of the conversation go unspoken and simply let it run through his head silently as he acknowledged his companion's words.

"Well I guess the future is never certain," Jaune suggested, "I'm sure you and the others will figure it out in time."

Ren shot Jaune a funny look; the latter merely lifted an eyebrow in response, but shook his head and gave a long sigh as he turned his attention back to staring into nothingness.

"What's the matter?" Jaune asked.

"Nothing, it's fine." Ren waved his hand dismissively.

"Come on," Jaune egged him, it was a major surprise for the prince-in-hiding to see the normally quiet and reserved martial artist agitated like that, the last time had of course been during summer break, when Jaune had sent Pyrrha all the way back home to Mistral. That topic had since been silently dropped and left to die, the team preferring to move past that as best as they could, "I'm trying my best here Ren, at least humor me for a moment? I know I've been a crappy leader to you guys here and there but in the very least-"

"See?" Jaune was taken aback by the sharp comeback, "There you go again, always with the ' _you guys this and you guys that_ '." Ren rolled his eyes, "You really don't seem very into the whole idea of a ' _team_ ' Jaune. Everything you do you treat like some silly obligation as a team leader rather than something that you want to do." Ren elbowed him, "It's like you're not really here at all, like maybe you'd prefer to be somewhere else _but_ here."

His leader remained silent, watching Ren out of the corner of his eyes as the other boy continued, "Look I'm not trying to say that you're a bad leader ok? Because you're not a _bad_ leader _period_ , you got all of us to work together to take down the Manticore during initiation, I don't think anyone else could've done that, you also pushed us through the breach repeatedly in spite of all the chaos." He explained slowly, pausing to take a breath, "It's just…you know we make jokes all the time about Weiss being the ice queen and all?" He then proceeded to poke Jaune in the side, causing the latter to jump and reflexively curl away.

"I think the way you're going, you might make a better ice king than she makes an ice queen."

"Well Yang already calls me permarcfrost so there's that…" Jaune trailed off but did not say anything else.

Ren took the ice pack off his head and sat it down at one side, he folded his arms and rolled his eyes rather obviously, "My point is, if you're going to be a part of this team than _be_ with this team at least, I don't know if there's something holding you back or anything like that but, _come on_ Jaune."

With that said Jaune merely looked away, whether out of shame and embarrassment or for some other reason Ren could not quite tell and the latter suddenly found himself feeling quite awkward as he struggled to come up with something else to say, Ren sighed.

"Ok look I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be so harsh, but look…I mean…" And once again Ren found himself at a loss for words, the normally quiet and reserved martial artist who preferred to remain in the background while his partner Nora took the forefront of the attention was finding it quite difficult to communicate with his oft-aloof team leader who frequently was not one for many words either.

"Geez Ren," Jaune scoffed all of sudden, "Give me some credit, I'm not so weak that I'll crumble and collapse just because someone is scolding me." He nudged the other boy gently with a thin smile on his face; Ren seemed to heave another sigh of relief at that

"Well that's good then," Ren relaxed as they fell back into another uncomfortable silence, "Hey say something, I'm pretty sure I'm not talking to myself here." Ren poked Jaune in his side again.

Jaune batted his companion's hand aside, ran his hands through his hair and rubbed his face tiredly, "Well…I can't exactly _fault you_ for being correct can I?" There was an immense tone of resignation in his voice.

"No, I don't suppose you can," Ren shuffled a little and put the icepack back on his head, "Y'know I've been wondering about exactly what you've been up to ever since summer break when you just let Pyrrha go home on her own and then told her that you were going home yourself only to stick around at the Academy with me and Nora, but frankly speaking I've honestly given up trying to figure you out."

"…Sorry to be so complicated." Was all Jaune managed to say, Ren poked him in the side again eliciting another sharp growl from Jaune, "Will you quit it?"

"It's not about whether or not you're simple or complicated, it's about whether or not you're ever going to open up and be honest with the rest of us for a change, it's nice to see you try sometimes, but I don't quite think it's enough." Ren explained, "I'd trust you with my back in battle at any time, I just don't feel like I can trust you in life."

"Shouldn't that be enough?" Jaune responded with raised eyebrows, "Isn't it enough that I can lead you into and out of a fight with your life mostly intact? You already trust me to do that much…what else is there?"

Now it was Ren's turn to look away, "Well if you're going to argue from that point of view then there's little else I can say is there?" He glared at Jaune rather spitefully, the latter was rather taken aback when Ren shoved the icepack into Jaune's hands, "There, I don't really need it anyway." More silence fell between them as Jaune placed the icepack beside him, neither moved from their position.

"I'm sorry." Jaune mumbled quietly.

"What?"

"I said I'm sorry alright?" Jaune sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly, "I'm…" He stopped and tried to formulate his words properly, "I'm really not cut for this am I? This whole leading a team thing…" He gave a somewhat half-hearted and empty chuckle.

Despite his exasperation and wanting to correct his leader as to what exactly he had meant when he had pointed out that Jaune was not a bad leader, Ren chose not to respond to that, instead he tried to steer the conversation onto a different topic, "So…how're things between you and Pyrrha?"

He felt Jaune go tense at that, the atmosphere seemed to cool noticeably, " _What exactly_ is that supposed to mean?" There was a sharper edge to Jaune's voice even as it remained perfectly level.

 _Well he's not known for having a lot of emotions anyway…_ Ren thought to himself as he continued talking, "I meant how are…" Ren gestured emptily with his hands, "Look, you know she has feelings for you right? She told you so back at the dance didn't she? I felt at ease knowing you could pick up her signal."

Silence again.

"Hey." Ren nudged him again, "I said I'm not talking to myself here." Jaune mumbled something again, "Excuse me? I didn't quite hear that."

" _Yes I know alright_?" And immediately Ren could tell the conversation was going to go in a very bad direction, he persisted though.

"So what're you going to do about that?"

"…Nothing." The answer was so straight and direct that it caught Ren off guard and briefly startled him.

"Wha…what do you mean _nothing_?" Ren demanded indignantly.

"I told Pyrrha I didn't share her feelings, she said she wasn't going to give up, said that she was going to try harder. I…" Jaune's mouth opened and closed and looked ashamed of himself, "I don't know _what_ to do, what am I supposed to do?" He pressed one hand into his face, "I already told her I…" And then he stopped, shaking his head quietly.

"She needs…to find… _someone else_." He gasped out with his head lowered, facing the ground as Ren watched, " _Anyone else_ is fine just…not me."

"I don't think she would accept anyone else." Ren said contemplatively, "She's focused squarely on you."

"Why though?" Jaune snapped his head up, staring into the distance "What's so special about _me_? Just because I was nice enough to make conversation with her makes me some sort of special snowflake to her?"

"Yes!" Ren snapped back, "Why do you enjoy denigrating yourself like that anyway?"

"What are you-"

"Remember back during initiation day? When you asked me if I had boiled Chrysanthemum tea for breakfast?" Jaune's eyes flicked back and forth, clearing doing his best to remember that moment in time, Ren continued, "You surprised me, not many people would have been able to detect it by scent alone, I was…quite pleased at the time to find someone else that preferred tea to coffee. So with that said…you _are_ important to us Jaune, for whatever faults you have we _do honestly_ care about you, I feel as though you've been living with his impression that was _don't_ care about you and I guess that's why you're always off on your own. But we _do_ Jaune, we _do_ give a damn, I wouldn't be having this conversation with you otherwise, that's why I'm trying to understand you now." He finished.

Ren sincerely hoped some part of that managed to get through to his leader, after all Jaune had never been an entirely unreasonable person, for Ren that much at least was certain, now all he had to do was wait and see what his leader's reaction was going to be.

All of a sudden, Jaune rose up off the ground, standing high above Ren and looking down on him with an unreadable expression on his face, for a moment the latter thought his leader had finally cracked in a few places and was going to start a fight with his own team and clenched his fists at his sides, despite his own not-quite-fully-functional state he was fully prepared for an inevitable confrontation. To his surprise it never came and he slowly unclenched Jaune turned his head away from his companion and looked into back at the casualty clearing station with a longing expression, and then he turned back to Ren with a somewhat apologetic expression on his face.

"I should probably be getting back to helping out, the Chief Medical Officer told me to look around for any other medical equipment that I could find lying around or if anyone wanted to help out with tending to the wounded. So with that said…" He sniffed and swallowed, "I won't force you, but you want to help me out with this?" He asked and held his hand out, "I don't think you want to stay here all day and all night just waiting for the girls to come back do you?"

Ren narrowed one eye a little suspiciously, he lowered his head and thought about his choices, truth be told he was already feeling quite a bit better, and it did seem like more help was needed.

"Alright," He took Jaune's hand and stood up a little shakily, stretching his legs that had become cramped after sitting down for so long and dusting himself off, "So where do we start?"

* * *

 _ **In the air,**_

"Good work teams!" Port's voice rang out cheerily amid the exhausted looks of trainees facing him in the bullhead, some of whom were clearing doing their best to pay the professor as little mind as possible, "Thanks to your help we were able to clear out the remaining pockets of Grimm surrounding the city and enable the Atlesian Military to take charge of the situation, the people should be able to return to their homes now and sleep safe at night, and all of this is thanks to your efforts! Also…"

As the Doctor droned on and on about something or the other that most of the trainees honestly could not be giving a damn about, Team RWBY at the very back of the bullhead was trying their best to catch some rest as the bullhead shuttled them and a few other teams back to the city. Although it had only been a full day, it had been a full day with little rest or break as they fought to clean the perimeter of the city from Grimm, thankfully none of it had been quite as intense as the breach although the length of time taken was much longer.

"Won't he ever just shut up?" Yang whispered out of earshot at the back of the bullhead, rubbing her ears, she was trying to catch a nap on the ride back home, a difficult thing to do considering the talkative doctor.

"Quiet Yang, that's disrespectful." Weiss whispered back with a finger to her lips, but even she did not appear to be really listening as her head rocked back and forth as she tried to stay awake.

Ruby and Blake for their part remained silent; Ruby was surprisingly twiddling her thumbs and shifting from side to side a little nervously, Blake had her eyes closed and arms folded, leaning back into the bullhead's bulkhead and apparently completely ignoring the world around her as she dozed quietly.

"How on Remnant can Blake sleep like that?" Yang wondered with a growl as the professor continued talking everyone's ears off. Ruby sat up straight, leaning back and drumming her fingers on her lap rather impatiently.

"Ruby, are you alright?" Weiss asked, watching her partner fidget about.

"Huh?" Ruby blinked and focused on the heiress, "Oh yeah I'm fine!" She nodded with a perky smile.

"You're looking rather impatient the way you keep playing with your hands like that." Weiss gestured at Ruby's hands.

Ruby opened her hands and faced her palms up, "Huh, I guess so…" She pursed her lips and rubbed her hands together.

"What're you so impatient about?"

"Nothing…well…" She tilted her head to the side, "I hope Jaune's doing ok, he and Ren were pretty out of it when we last saw them."

Weiss raised an eyebrow but merely nodded and fell silent herself.

"Relax sis," Yang smiled, "Those two are pretty tough guys, they can take a few hits. Certainly by far and wide they're tougher than most of the tough guys that I've ever had the pleasure of meeting." Weiss turned to Ruby for an explanation and received merely received a shrug and a shake of her head in response. Neither of the two apparently felt like asking her what that meant and so no one spoke for the remainder of the ride back to the landing zone, by the time they finally managed to stagger off the bullhead and back into the heart of the city that they had fought so hard to save, it was already dark and the sun's last rays had disappeared over the horizon.

As Team RWBY filed out of the bullhead and into the landing zone, they walked quickly, all eager to meet up with their companions before presumably heading back to Beacon for a well-deserved nights' rest. Surprisingly, Professor Port had let them go pretty easily even as he dragged the other teams away for a debriefing.

"Stay safe children!" He called out as they were walking away, "Keep to the streets and try not to get anywhere the casualty clearing stations if you can!" They barely acknowledged him in response.

"What's a casualty clearing station?" Ruby asked.

"Probably shorthand for the medics or something." Yang waved her hand dismissively, "C'mon, let's get to it already; I don't wanna keep the others hanging." She insistently pushed the rest of the team forward.

Lightning flashed across the sky and thunder rumbled in the distance as they walked to their destination, startling the group and making them turn to face the sky, a few droplets of water started coming down. Ruby pulled her hood over her face as the other's looked around, the streets were mostly deserted but for a few lingering souls here and there as well as soldiers walking around. They continued moving on in silence as a light rain drizzled down on them, a loud crash made all of them jump and turn to the side.

"It came from over there." Blake pointed out a shophouse a short distance away. Out of the blue a pair of men scurried out of it carrying what looked like a large television screen. They turned and both groups locked eyes with one another. Their eyes grew wide like a deer caught in a vehicle's headlights.

"Hey!" Yang angrily yelled out, "What're you assholes doing?!" They exchanged a brief glance, dropped the set on the ground –breaking it- and ran for it.

"Damn rascals!" Yang grabbed a small piece of rubble and aimed it at the retreating figures; she pulled her arm back and prepared to snap it forward until she found it locked in position.

"Stop it Yang! You're going to kill them if you do that!" Blake glared at her partner, one hand gripping Yang's arm tightly.

"I can't believe this… _looters_ , have they no shame?" Weiss shook her head disgustedly as Ruby unfurled her scythe.

"I'm going after them." And before anyone could say anything she disappeared in a swirl of rose petals.

"We'd better catch up." Blake started running with the others following behind, they followed the trail of rose petals down the road as the reaper went, thankfully it was ony a short distance away that they heard voices.

"Wait! Stop! Don't kill us! We're sorry!" A cry sounded out, they quickened their pace, the trail leading them around a corner and into an alleyway where they found the reaper brandishing her scythe in front of two young men cowering in the corner.

"Hah! You thought you were going to get away with that?" Ruby smirked and twirled Crescent Rose menacingly.

"You punks ought to be ashamed of yourself!" Weiss scolded, "People are dying out there and all you can think of is yourself!" She angrily growled, "What the hell were you even planning on doing anyway?"

"The question is what're we going to do with them now though?" Blake questioned.

"Here's what we're going to do…" Yang cracked her knuckles.

"Sis…" Ruby looked at her through narrowed eyes.

"Relax Rubes, I'm not going to bust their heads in, ok fellas its real simple," Yang approached them with her darkest glare, "You're gonna come with us _quietly,_ and we're going to hand you over to the police, try _anything_ funny and…" She held up Ember Celica for them to see, "This goes _so far up your ass_ , got it?"

"You have no authority to do this." One hissed, "You're not real hunters." Even then he looked rather fearful.

"Oh? _Not real hunters_?" Yang leaned over them, "Want to see what this not-real-hunter will do to you if you don't shut up? No one's gonna miss a couple of scumbags like you who take advantage of other people during a crisis, so since I'm not a real hunter, maybe I should try other methods of making you cooperate? Concussion maybe?" She threatened.

"Dave shut up!" The other berated the first, "Y-yeah, we-we got it." He stuttered out.

"Great, now stand up and walk in front, I'm watching you." She ordered, they remained still, " _What the hell are you waiting for_?!" Yang yelled at the top of her voice, in an instant both of them were up and walking to the entrance under the glares of the rest of the team.

"And just to be safe…show me your hands!" Weiss growled out, they did so and she waved her hands over them, a glyph appeared on each of their wrists, linked together as though they were handcuffs, "There! Now start walking, Ruby if you wouldn't mind leading?" She brandished Myrtenaster in their faces. Silently they walked out onto the road with Ruby and Blake in front and Yang and Weiss behind, the heiress kept her rapier up and pressed the point into the back of one of the men to move him along faster.

"Well he's getting the point alright." Yang scoffed, no one groaned or corrected her as they walked.

By luck they happened to meet a patrol of Atlesian soldiers scouring the area for just such people.

"Thanks for your help hunters, we've been getting reports in all day of looters and scavengers stealing whatever isn't nailed down from shops and homes, the Vale Police Department is currently occupied with assisting in managing the crowds coming out of the civilian shelters so it's up to us to keep the peace." The one in charge noted as another slapped some proper cuffs on the two looters, "This will go some way to improving the situation."

"Happy to be of assistance sir!" Ruby nodded with a bright smile.

"Well I'd better get these idiots back, thanks again for your help." He held out his hand, Ruby shook it firmly as he turned away, "Alright let's get these mofos back to base!" He signaled the rest of his patrol.

"By the way sir, which way is it back to the casualty clearing station?" Ruby asked.

The soldier looked quite surprised at the question, "It's back that way, take a right turn and just follow the road, you'll get to it eventually." He pointed out.

"Ok cool, thanks!"

"Not a problem."

And with that the team was once again left by themselves, walking along quietly as it continued drizzling down on them.

"The nerve of those two!" Weiss hissed angrily, "I can't believe such people exist!" She folded her arms.

"Well at least we helped solve that particular problem," Ruby noted, "One less thing for the people to worry about."

"This rain is getting annoying though." Yang swatted at her own hair and wiped her own face to get rid of stray droplets that were falling into her eyes, "It's been a long day gals, let's hurry up, meet up with our pals and get the hell out of here and back to Beacon, I've had enough of today." Silent nods of agreement abounded as they continued their trek to the casualty clearing station in the miserable weather.

Arriving at the site itself, they gingerly picked their way through rows of tents filled with wounded soldiers and civilians, trying their best to avert their eyes from the gruesome sights and sounds around them, men and women dashed back and forth with bloody bandages and bottles in arms between patients amidst lost limbs, despairing cries and agonized wailing. A pervasive smell hung in the air, not helped by the humidity that the rainfall was generating; Team RWBY held their hands over their mouths and pushed forward. The place was a complete mess, and somewhere in the middle of all this bloody chaos were their two male friends.

If they were honest, the team was not even sure where they ought to begin looking for them, they thought to stop one of the medics running around and ask but decided against it seeing how busy they were.

"Hey isn't that Ren?" Weiss pointed out a dark-haired figure wearing green darting about carrying a tray with some items on it.

"I think it is." Yang cupped her hands to her mouth, "Hey Ren!" She shouted as she ran after the figure, the figure stopped and turned to look at them. As the team drew closer they could see it was indeed the other male member.

"Team RWBY? When did you get here?" He asked with both eyebrows raised.

"Just." Yang folded her arms, "Where's the rest of your team? And what's that you're carrying? Shouldn't you be resting or something?"

"Pyrrha and Nora aren't back yet, Jaune is just over there." He pointed out the person in question who was crouched beside a cot on which lay what appeared to be an Atlesian soldier. The leader of Team JNPR appeared to be speaking to the soldier whose face and head were covered in a swathe of bandages that were being frantically applied by another soldier who seemed to be ignoring the presence of the trainee hunter, "These are all medical supplies and I felt better so I volunteered to help out." He explained.

"What's he doing?" Weiss tilted her head to one side as she watched Jaune.

"I don't know." Ren shrugged with a resigned look on his face, "Come on, I have to bring this stuff to the other side." He rocked his head and begin striding away with the team following close behind.

As they neared, they began picking up the conversation that Jaune was having with the soldier.

"So are you ever going to propose to her?" Jaune asked with a smile on his face, the soldier narrowed his eyes at him and grunted something unintelligible to the team as Ren carefully placed the tray down at one side and tapped the shoulder of the medic, the medic nodded and thanked Ren as the boy withdrew to one side quietly. The team stood just a few meters away as Jaune continued talking.

"It was just a question." Jaune shrugged.

"I can't believe I'm talking to some kid about this…" The soldier scoffed, "Yeah, well…I was planning to do it once the Vytal Festival was over and we returned to Atlas." He said with a sheepish smile

"That sounds really nice, you planning anything special or romantic?"

"Haha, yeah…I was actually thinking of…" He took a deep breath and it seemed like Jaune suddenly paid extra concentration all of a sudden, "Maybe at night…on a rooftop…with those lights in the night sky…what do you call them again?"

"You mean the aurora?" Jaune's eyes lighted up and the smile grew bigger, "wow that's…" He laughed a little.

"Sounds really stupid huh?" The soldier laughed with him, "I'm a sucker for this shit."

"I was going to say really cheesy actually," Jaune smirked "I think it's nice, I'm definitely sure she'll appreciate it…"

" _What_ is he doing?" Weiss gaped in astonishment, "Is he _seriously_ asking that guy about his romantic relationships?" She squinted.

"I believe Mr. Arc is trying to monitor the soldier's speech patterns and determine his condition so that the medic can focus firmly on bandaging the soldier's wounds." A voice made them all jump; they spun around to find themselves looking at Professor Oobleck.

"Professor? When did you get here?" Weiss asked, "And what did you mean by monitoring his speech patterns?"

"A lot of the available aerial transportation was commandeered for use by the Atlesian Military, many were destroyed during the ensuing battle. So I've been trying to scrounge up the necessary transport to take you and the other students back, now as for your other question…" He cleared his throat, "It's likely that he's trying to use the soldier's ability to speak as a way to gauge how the soldier is feeling and whether or not he requires further and more specialized medical attention. It's also likely that he's making small talk to distract the soldier from the pain of his wounds." The professor explained while adjusting the glasses on the bridge of his nose.

"Whoa…he knows how to do that?" Ruby's eyes were wide with surprise.

"It's not overly surprising, Mr. Arc comes from the military, rather than go to a combat school like the rest of you, he spent two years training with the Royal Legion before coming here to Beacon. Doubtless this is a technique he would definitely have known of, and consequently been taught to do something like this in the course of his training, it's probably also where his minor skill as a medic comes from." Oobleck answered with a smile on his face.

"So he's a soldier too?" Yang popped an eyebrow.

"Trained as one in the very least, military training is a far cry and _very different_ from combat school, it would definitely give you a new viewpoint to look from." Oobleck stroked his chin thoughtfully, "He's been helping out in the medical tent for some time now, and 'getting his hands dirty' so to speak, Ren joined him just a short while ago."

Team RWBY shifted a little uncomfortably.

In the meantime, the medic had finished his work and moved on, Jaune bid the soldier goodbye and noticing Team RWBY, picked up a large brown sling bag before walking over to them, Ren joining him at his side.

"Hey professor! Gals! Good to see you all made it!" He waved and grinned widely, "So how was cleanup duty?" He placed his hands on his hips.

"Good to see you're doing well Mr. Arc." Oobleck smiled from behind his glasses.

"Pretty easy I guess, killing Grimm is a lot easier when there's fewer of them…and more room to maneuver…" Ruby answered

"Yeah we and also bumped into some looters on the way here, we took care of it pretty quickly though." Yang remarked, Oobleck snapped his head to her with his jaw hung slightly open.

"Is that so? Looters huh? Hmm…" Jaune hummed a little in thought, "What'd you do with them?"

"Just handed them over to a passing patrol, they can probably handle it themselves." The brawler smirked, "Say while we're waiting for Pyrrha and Nora, I know this little bar that we can head to while we wait, you were just down there this morning. So what do you say?" Yang folded her arms and wiggled her eyebrows.

Jaune's eyes went wide, "That's right! Hei's Nightlife Knocks!" He snapped his fingers and ground his teeth, "I forgot I told one of the girls that I was going to go checkup on them once the breach was closed!" He ran his hands through his hair, "Gah! Can't believe I forgot!"

"Jaune! Your hair! Wait…your hands?" They were all staring at the red streaks in his hair that had appeared.

"Huh?" Jaune looked at her with a confused expression.

"You got blood in your hair," Ren explained, "Red on yellow…"

"Ah geez…" Jaune tried to wipe his hands off on his jeans, "Maybe the rain will be good for something now, speaking of which, you made sure the bandages stayed dry didn't you?" He eyed Ren.

"Yes." Was all Ren said.

"Why are your hands so bloody anyway?" Ruby looked a little queasy while looking at them.

"Oh yeah," Jaune pursed his lips as he looked them over, "I was helping out here and there, the medics are swamped, so I volunteered to help out with the lighter cases, the ones that only required cleaning and bandaging wounds, even so…" He shrugged as he let his hands fall down to his sides.

"Ok now that we've established that!" Yang butted in, "Shall we all go? You said you'd check up on them right?"

Jaune's face contorted briefly, he turned his head to look out into the distance for a moment, and then turned to look around, "I'd really love to go but…" He gave an awkward smile, "I think I'm-"

"Hey noodles!" Everyone jumped and looked to see a soldier in fatigues shouting at them from a short distance away.

"Sir!" Came a sharp and immediate response.

"Quit standing around chatting girls up, if you're gonna help out then for god's sake _help out_! They need plasma and morphine on the other end, grab whatever you can and move it!" He barked loudly.

"Yes sir!" Jaune nodded and turned back to them, "Yeah I'm kinda busy here, why don't you go and check up on them yourselves, just say you're my friends or something." He said quickly as he went back to the tray that Ren had been carrying earlier, a few packs of bandages and gauze were left inside, "C'mon Ren, we need to get over there!" He grabbed the tray and started running as fast as he could.

Ren exchanged a glance with Team RWBY, he shrugged and shook his head before following after him.

The Team watched the two run off somewhere else and disappear.

"…crap." Yang kicked at something on the ground, "Now we're gonna look like a bunch of asses if we just run off to a club, what do you think Blake?...Blake?" The cat Faunus was staring off in the direction that Jaune and Ren had run off to with a look that said she wanted to follow after them.

"I suppose I'll leave him to you for now, I have other things to attend to, I'm still trying to gather a few bullheads to round up the students, once I do I'll contact both of your teams and you can return to Beacon as soon as possible, until then you may remain as you were." Just before he was about to leave though Ruby spoke up.

"Wait professor!" He turned to her with raised eyebrows, "Uh…what…what do you err… what do you think _we_ can do to help out?" Ruby gestured to her own team.

"Well Ms. Rose," He turned back to face them again, "There's lots of things that need to be done, besides the need for medical expertise, you lot are not just hunters are you now?" He leaned forward until he was right in Ruby's face.

"Uhm…well…"

"There must be other skills you have, skills that aren't directly related to hunting but that you nonetheless picked over the course of your own life no?" Oobleck straightened back up, "Well then use those talents! Apply what you've learned over the course of your life to aid those in need! Ms. Schnee, you can sing can you not? Why not ply the soldiers with a melody from Atlas to raise their spirits? And you Ms. Xiao Long, you can cook yes? I'm sure everyone is hungry after a long day! Ms. Belladonna-"

"I'll go and see if Jaune needs a hand." She answered for him.

"Fair enough, and you Ms. Rose…" He seemed to try to think of something.

"Uh..I'll…I'll see if anyone…needs someone to run errands…" She murmured 'or something' under her breath at the end of that but no one seemed to notice.

"Well there you have it then! Chop chop children! I still need to find transport back, until then do your best, that is all!" And just like that he disappeared.

"I…guess we'd better get cracking then…" Yang scratched her head, "There's got to be a field kitchen somewhere…Weiss you…what's the matter with you?"

Weiss was looking rather nervous and shaky, "I…I'm not sure I can sing in a place like this…" She squirmed from side to side while looking around with worried eyes, "It…just doesn't seem appropriate somehow…"

"Heh, I'm guessing you don't have a microphone or a surround sound system?" Yang smirked and shook her head a little.

"Well that and…yeah…" Weiss grumbled a little.

"Well I'll let you gals sort it out, I'm going to see if Jaune and Ren need a hand." Blake was quickly running off in their direction. She did not stop to see what their reactions were to her sudden flight, this time though, she was sure she was going to run straight at the problem rather than away from it.

Besides, it would not do to have a prince away from his Royal Protectors for so long now would it?

So she ran around and round and round searching for a blonde boy wearing a black hoodie with a dark-haired boy wearing green. Ducking into and out of separate tents, looking through rows of wounded men under large tents with medics rushing back and forth, for the most part she was largely ignored; one more girl running around aimlessly was not going to be missed amidst all the other people still looking for loved ones and family in the aftermath of the breach.

She was almost about to give up when she tossed open the flap to one tent and…

"Toss those bandages into the boiling pot, that'll help sterilize them." Blake's eyes widened as she saw Jaune digging through a crate while Ren was helping a soldier throw bloody bandages into a large, steaming pot.

"Ok next…hmm." Jaune hummed and stroked his chin.

"Jaune?" Blake approached him slowly from behind, he spun around.

"Hey Blake, you need something? Sorry I'm kinda busy I-"

"Actually, I came to help you, what needs to be done?" She stood up straight and asked with an awkward look on her face.

"Uh…are you sure? I mean…" He heaved a small sigh, "You don't have to-"

"I can perform first aid as well; I mean back in…you know…" She trailed off hoping he would get the point.

He seemed to as his eyes narrowed briefly before he smirked, "I see, come on and suffer with me then." He began looking through the crate as Ren and the soldier finished dumping the bandages, the soldier thanked Ren who went back to the other two.

"Ok, so what do we have?" Blake went to another crate and peered over it to see piles of bandages.

"You know how to inject morphine? I'm too rusty to remember the procedure," Jaune went to another crate, Ren could only stand at one side and watch with a blank look on his face.

"Well I think I…" Then Blake shook her head, "No, I don't remember either."

"Ok, so grab one of those bags," Jaune gestured to a pile of sling bags at one side, "Grab some stuff and get to work, triangle bandages-"

"Can be used as slings and tourniquets, crepe bandages and gauze for head wounds, bottle of alcohol disinfectant, face shield for CPR…" Blake was already rifling through various crates, counting off the various items as she placed them into her bag and continued on. Jaune watched her with a surprised look as she went through the crates and cabinets methodically, he exchanged a look with Ren who simply shrugged, the latter as just been following his leader around without any real clue as to what was going on.

"Do you think I should take the morphine anyway?" Blake's voice drew Jaune's attention back to her, she was holding up a packet of syringes with fluid in them.

He nodded, "Yeah, someone might need it."

"Blood plasma?"

"That too."

"Ok." Blake tossed a few more packets in, "Alright, I think we're set."

"Follow me." Jaune headed out with the other two on his heels. Just as he opened the tent flap and walked out their eyes were immediately drawn skyward as a bullhead began descending down a short distance away, "Must be another batch of wounded having been evacuated, come on you two!" All three ran in the direction of the bullhead.

A brutal scene awaited them as they approached the landing pad, men and women were being brought out slowly in stretchers, the three slowed to a stop and moved to the side to make way for the line being brought out slowly.

"Hey noodles! Get your ass over here!" They turned to the voice; Blake recognized it as the man who had been yelling at Jaune earlier.

"That's the Chief Medical Officer, his name's Cross." Jaune explained to them as they ran over.

"We've already divided them out, get to work on the walking wounded." Cross jerked his thumb behind him.

"Yes sir," Jaune replied, "We took some morphine and plasma from the storage, where should we put it?" He asked.

"Bring it over to that tent," Cross pointed out, "They're running low over there."

"Ok, Blake you take all of this over there," Jaune started handing her his own packs, "I'll start with Ren, Ren you hold on to this first." He took out a flexible splint as Blake did a short jog over to the tent, he walked to over to one of the wounded soldiers who was sitting down outside another tent, he was grimacing in pain and clutching one arm which looked quite bent out of shape.

"Hey there, let me see that," Jaune knelt down beside him and gently took his arm in one of his own, "Hmm, forearm fracture, Ren give me the splint, and fold these triangle bandages like I showed you just now." Ren passed it to him and caught the bandages that Jaune tossed him, folding the apex of the bandage down as he watched Jaune work, folding the splint so that it conformed to the soldier's arm, "So where do you come from?" He asked out of the blue.

"You're…you're not a medic…" The soldier said softly while breathing heavily, he had leaned back against the tent.

"Nope, I'm a civilian volunteer." Jaune smiled, "So where do you come from?" Jaune asked again.

"Ah…Atlas." The soldier answered.

"Uh huh, any particular part of Atlas?" Jaune held out his hand and gestured for the bandages which Ren quickly passed to him.

"Err…a town West of the city, it's on the coast." He watched Jaune work, "How old are you?"

"Me? Seventeen." Jaune shot him a brief glance as he used the bandages to tie the splint to the arm, "So is my partner Ren over there."

"Seventeen…" He looked rather shocked, "what're you kids even doing here? Shouldn't you be at home or something?" Ren narrowed his eyes briefly but said nothing.

"Just doing my part, helping out," Making sure that the arm stayed supported, Jaune took another bandage from Ren, holding it under the fractured arm, he tied the long ends together around the soldier's neck and tucked the end under his elbow, "That should hold you, are you hurt anywhere else?"

"N-no, I-I think I'm good."

"Perfect, on to the next one." Neither Ren nor Jaune were really sure how much time passed as they did their best for the other soldiers with Blake joining them shortly thereafter. Everything was a haze of blood, alcohol and morphine as they cleaned and bandaged wounds, comforted wounded soldiers and helped carry stretchers back and forth. Even Ren was able to join in once Jaune showed him how to do more.

"Hey someone give us a hand here!" All three had just packed looked around for the sound of the voice, a pair of soldiers were carrying a third on a stretcher who looked like he had been through a meat grinder, his expression was glassy and his fatigues around his torso were stained red, blood poured out of his mouth and dripped onto the ground below.

"Ren you stay here and continue helping here, let's go Blake." They both nodded as Jaune and Blake ran forward as fast as possible, Cross was already at the scene.

"Bring him over here! Over here! That area's for those treated already!" He barked out as the soldiers carried him over to a, open-air tent with a table under it, "Just set him down here, noodles good timing!" He grabbed a tube and tossed it at Jaune who frantically caught it, "Take this gel! Apply it directly to his wounds, it'll clog the wound and stop the bleeding!" At the same time he went over to a crate and began rifling through it.

"Ok!" Jaune said as he struggled to open the tube, meanwhile Blake got to work cutting open the man's fatigues with a pair of scissors as he seemed to jerk about randomly as if he were trying to move, "What… _wound_ is it?" Jaune grunted as he finally pulled the packet open.

"Gunshot." Blake said flatly when she saw the dark holes; she began desperately trying to wipe the man's torso of blood to find the entrance wound.

"What? How the hell did that happen?" Jaune stopped and stared at her.

"Less talking more doing!" Cross finally came back, "Did it go through clean?" He asked.

"I…" One of Blake's hands went behind his back, "I…I don't know, I can't feel for an exit wound…" She growled as she tried to feel for it amidst the slick red liquid that was staining her hands and the table. Jaune meanwhile had set to work trying to apply the thick, viscous liquid, he ran his own hands over the man's torso trying to clear the blood away until he saw the black hole that indicated a pair of wounds to his chest and lower abdomen, he immediately squeezed out a whole chunk onto the man's chest.

"Ah, shit…"

"Never mind that, just focus on stopping the bleeding." Cross ordered as he kneeled over and looked down into the soldier's face, "Do you need morphine? _Do you need morphine_?" He nearly shouted into his face, the soldier seemed to nod a little. Cross stuffed his hand into one pocket and yanked out a packet and tossed it in Blake's direction, the ninja cat Faunus barely caught it.

"You know where to apply?"

"…No."

"Ok, just open it first I'll show you, I'll try to hold him steady…noodles!"

"It's done, I think the bleeding's stopped!" Jaune cheered a little as he slathered the thick goop over the bloody torso.

"Good work kid!" Cross nodded, all of a sudden the soldier gurgled and choked, blood pouring from his open mouth in a stream down his cheeks, his eyes were wide-open, staring into the air aimlessly as his body jerked back and forth violently.

"I'll try to keep him still just get the morphine ready!" Cross ordered as Blake nearly ripped the package open and held up a syringe, she shakily took the little thing in her hands and gently pulled the cap off, trying to hold it steadily as he hands shook.

"Ok, Jaune you help me hold him, now you need to…" He trailed off when he looked back down at the soldier.

"What?" Blake asked with fearful eyes, " _What do I need to do_?" She insisted frantically as she held the syringe over the soldier. Slowly the struggling ceased as the man gurgled one last time, and then finally it stopped as he went limp with Jaune holding him and Blake hovering above him with the syringe inches from his torso. Both went as still as the soldier was when they realised what had just transpired.

"…He's gone…keep that morphine, don't waste it now. I'll get a body bag." Cross stated calmly and set his jaw, he looked between the two hunters-in-training as they remained where they were, staring with wide eyes at the now-corpse on the table in front of them, holding their positions, their feet fixed firmly to the ground with their eyes staring right at the dead soldier's face. He shook his head and departed quickly to attend to the others, from experience he knew it would sink in soon enough for the both of them.

Neither was quite sure how much time had passed when Jaune was finally able to slowly push himself away from the bloody corpse lying on the table with a sigh, his arms falling slowly to his sides as he looked over the body lying on the table with blood flowing out onto the surface below, eyes staring up and into empty space, he sniffed and swallowed tightly, grinding his lower jaw as he stepped away slowly with his hands trembling and dripping blood. Blake also slowly withdrew from the table with a downcast expression on her face, gingerly setting the syringe filled with morphine down at one side as she licked her dry lips and sucked them in, her own hands dripping with blood, she daringly looked up and found herself looking right into Jaune's eyes as he stood just across the table from her.

Rage

Anguish

Pain

Sadness

…

Acceptance?

She somehow found herself seeing all of these things at the same time. Surprisingly, her charge the prince-in-hiding did not look quite as distraught as she had imagined that he would be after having such an experience as he just did, even though his eyes were flickering rapidly and he was breathing heavily, he looked about as calm as he could be…or was he really just that good at acting? For her it was not the first time she had ever watched someone die right in front of her.

 _And now that I think about it, it's not his first time either is it?_ She thought sadly to herself, in the midst of all this the two had not broken eye contact, and when she finally realised that she quickly looked away to the side, unsure as to what to make of it as she dabbed away some sweat on her nose with the back of her hand.

A sharp sigh drew her attention back to Jaune, he had cast his face downwards and was rubbing his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt, he looked back up and into her eyes for a brief moment before looking away again. He stepped away from the scene and began slowly staggering away, Blake quickly stepped towards him.

"Hey." Blake reached out and gripped his arm tightly, stopping him in his tracks; he looked at her out of the corner of his eye, his blue irises piercing her amber ones, "Let's go." Once again he surprised her by nodding in consent to her thought. He did not say anything else as she gently pulled him out of the tent and into the drizzle outside, as they exited the tent, Ren came running up to them carrying what looked like a packet of blood.

"Ok! I heard you guys needed a potential blood transfusion so…" He trailed off on seeing the state that the two of them were in, his face fell and he let his shoulders sag and he bit his lower lip nervously. He place the package back into his bag and followed the two of them as Blake sat Jaune down against a fence and sat at one side holding her legs to her chest as Ren sat beside him cross legged, Jaune simply stretched out his legs and stared into the sky with a blank expression on his face.

The three of them sat together like this in silence as most chose to simply ignore the three blood smeared teenagers sitting at the side.

"So…where did you learn to be a medic?" Ren asked quietly after some time.

"…When I was training for two years with the Royal Legion based at Frostriver in preparation to attend Beacon," He said slowly, his eyes continued staring straight ahead, "Although I asked to be sent out with the daily foot patrol groups as often as possible to get the experience, well…" He adjusted his position and swallowed, "They can't exactly risk someone like me on the frontlines huh? Besides back then I was just a kid, just some idiot who wasn't even sure what he was going to do." He shot her an awkward smile.

Ren seemed rather perplexed at that while Blake nodded, "So I guess that means you must've been stuck on support duties?" It made sense to her, even if he was being trained as a soldier, why would they risk the prince himself out in the wilderness?

"More or less, I still wanted to be able to contribute in some way," He rubbed his hands together and smacked his lips, the blood was washing off slowly in the rain, "So I ended up at the aid station most of the time, of course I got to go out every now and then but…I guess my safety took priority for them and for my family…I'm not exactly grade-A soldiering material, plus there was my age and all."

"Oh, I guess that's understandable."

"Doesn't mean I didn't go out into the field though, I _did_ , just…not…very…often." Jaune sighed and closed his eyes as he leaned back against the wall. A comfortable silence descended on the trio as they rested, and then something strange happened, a soft melody began to echo out over the area, all three turned their heads in the direction.

"Do you hear that?" Jaune asked.

* * *

 _ **Some distance away,**_

After spending sometime scrounging around for a spare mic set and maybe a loudspeaker –Yang did not manage to find the latter-, Weiss now stood somewhere in the middle of the entire mess with her legs knees shaking wildly to and fro with the mic in one hand, looking around the area with a very anxious expression on her face. So far not one person seemed to have noticed the rather odd sight, a short, white-haired girl dressed in white holding a microphone while a blonde girl stood beside her.

"Ok, you ready?" Yang patted her on the back and gave an encouraging smile.

"I… _I think so._ " Weiss swallowed hard, she had done this before, why was she getting what was basically stage fright?

"Then just go," Yang pushed her forward, " _Sing_ and grace everyone with beautiful melody that will capture the hearts of all these downtrodden men and women." She clasped her hands together and made a mock-dreamy expression on her face.

Weiss grimaced but said nothing, instead she took a few deep breaths and exhaled slowly, trying to calm herself down, she felt almost as worse as the first time she had ever performed onstage for a live audience, maybe even worse than that. She lifted the microphone to her lips, opened her mouth, letting the scene of her singing run through her head, and…

And nothing came out.

She had lost her voice.

She let her hand fall to the side, she clutched her body and shivered, suddenly feeling very cold.

"Hey what's the matter?" Yang went to her side as Weiss looked away bashfully.

"I can't do this." Weiss shook her head and rubbed her forehead.

"Why not?"

"It's not…it doesn't…" Weiss growled and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, "It's not appropriate, people are suffering here and I'm trying to set up a concert? How much more ridiculous can I get?"

"Listen to me Weiss-y, it's a concert _for them_." Yang grabbed her from the front by both her shoulders and smiled at her, "Like professor Oobleck said, sing something for them to uplift their spirits, it's _for them_ Weiss…it's _for them_." Yang grinned brightly, "If it helps, just focus on making a good song first, and the rest will naturally come to you."

Weiss smacked her dry lips and swallowed hard again, "Ok…ok…" She lifted the mic to her lips again and closed her eyes, laying out in her mind slowly all of the intonations and melodies in her song, running through them and making sure that she was going to perform each and every part to perfection like the heiress she was.

And just like that, she opened her mouth and began to sing.

It was a song of determination, of hope and of courage.

She started out a little uneasy, unused to performing in such an impromptu manner.

She slipped, a few notes came out wrong, it made her want to stop.

She continued on, _for them,_ she had been told.

She dared to open her eyes, it seemed like the world had stopped, she was the center of attention now.

She returned their attention, looking into exhausted eyes and weary faces.

She had no music to follow along, so she made do with her voice.

She picked the pace up, flowing through the song naturally with skill and precision.

It seemed like the world had gone still and quiet as the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company sang for all the living, the dead and the dying. Everyone from soldiers to civilians looked up at the sound of her voice, they held their breaths and tongues as the melody swept over the area, listening intently for the song she sang that echoed out amidst the drizzling rain, even the cries of the wounded fell silent in the course of her song.

* * *

 _ **Elsewhere in Vale,**_

Nora and Professor Goodwitch watched at one side as Pyrrha used her semblance to lift a large piece of reinforced concrete rubble of the road and onto the side where it would be collected by the disposal teams later. The pieces that the champion was lifting constituted the last bit of work that they needed to do for this particular road, and as Pyrrha set it down gently with a small thud, Nora clapped her hands together and dusted them off.

"All done Professor!" She grinned widely and looked up at Professor Goodwitch,

She acknowledged the cheer with a small smile and nod of her own as she adjusted her glasses, "Good job you two, our work here is done, you can be proud of yourselves for what you've accomplished today." She stuck her hand out and let a few drops fall onto it, peering into the dark sky, "And I think it's past time that we head back to Beacon, tomorrow I guess there might be a debriefing for all the students, but until then it's time to head on home." She started walking away with the two following close behind.

"All that is left to do will be to find Mr. Arc and Mr. Lie back at the casualty clearing station." She said as she walked.

"I hope they're ok." Pyrrha wondered out loud, "Even if we were well and our help was needed, I'd rather not have left them on their own like that."

"But on the other hand, your presence made a considerable difference Ms. Nikos," Glynda pointed out as they walked in the drizzle, "Thanks to you, Ms. Valkyrie and Teams RWBY and CFVY, we were able to forestall a potential worsening of the crisis." Pyrrha seemed to ponder this momentarily.

"Rather than think about what was lost, think about what you were able to do instead." Glynda said.

"Yeah Pyrrha!" The ever perky hammer maiden sounded out, "We'll have so much to tell Jaune and Ren once we get back! I'll bet they're even jealous that we got to take down a goliath of all things and they weren't even there to see it! I can't wait to see the looks on their faces when we tell them that we all cooperated together to bring something like that down." She slapped the champion on the back, who gave her an awkward smile in turn.

They mostly fell silent on their trek back to the landing zone to fly back to Beacon, they observed the sights around them as they did, those that had been evacuated to various safe zones were slowly returning to their homes and houses and doing their best to clean up the damage from the battle as best as they could. A number of apartments had been wiped out from the intense aerial bombing from above courtesy of the Atlesian Military, other houses had been gutted and once pristine gardens been churned and destroyed.

They made for sobering sights on the long way back.

Pyrrha did her best to ignore it and tried to think about something else besides the horror and the destruction of the past morning. Invariably, her mind drifted to thoughts of her rather one-sided not-so-secret crush on her leader. He had done his best to let her down gently when she had sort-of let him know her feelings for him with a casual acceptance that she was going to keep trying no matter what. Then after that she had learned that he had lied to her about going home for summer break and…

And she honestly was not sure what to think, it was cruel of him to do so for sure, she would have rather spent that time with him, but on the other hand it felt great for her to have been back home again.

 _Hmm, do I really want to do this though? Jaune hasn't been completely honest with me, but still…I can't help but wish to be with him, is that really so wrong?_ _I don't know what to do now…_ She was caught up in her thought she did not notice that Nora was right beside her staring up at the much taller girl.

"Whatcha thinking about Pyr?" The shock was so sudden Pyrrha stumbled a little but caught herself in time.

"N-nora? I…what…?" Her eyebrows jumped at the hammer maiden.

"I said, what're you thinking about?" Nora beamed at her.

"Oh…uh…just some stuff, not really important or anything." Pyrrha looked away bashfully.

"It's Jaune isn't it?" Pyrrha squeaked in response, her teammate had hit the nail on the head, she nodded slowly, "Well what're you going to do about him?"

"I don't know," the champion sighed, "He hasn't been entirely truthful with us, but I can't help but… _feel_ for him." She shook her head, "Is that what being in love feels like?"

Walking just behind them Professor Goodwitch could not help but overhear them, this was the first time she had heard of an attraction by the champion towards the prince-in-hiding, and it almost made her chuckle at the thought of the two of them in a relationship. Then again the system of teams and partners made for some incredibly close-knit relations between hunters, many life-long romances had blossomed out of it.

On the other hand…

"Excuse me Ms. Nikos, I couldn't help but overhear that Mr. Arc hasn't been entirely truthful to you?" That was something surprising, she might even give time to tell the prince off for it.

"Oh Ms. Goodwitch! It's really nothing; you don't have to concern yourself with it." The champion was very insistent, which only made the Professor more curious, and since the prince was technically her charge as well as a professor she decided to press the issue a little further.

"As your professor Ms. Nikos I _am_ in charge of your wellbeing, and if there is a problem is won't do to let it simply sit without being solved," She adjusted her glasses with a tilt of her head, "So come now, what is the issue?"

"I…ok…" Pyrrha took a deep breath, "Well…a few months ago during summer break, I…Jaune told me to head back home during the break period as he himself would be heading home as well…I found out recently that he did not."

That made Glynda raise her eyebrows, it seemed a little petty from her point of view, on the other hand…

 _I wonder, high highness must still have incredibly strong feelings towards his homeland after the attack two years ago, on the other hand…what could have been the reason?_ So said Glynda's thought process.

"I'm sure he has a good reason to do so, Mr. Arc doesn't seem like the type to offhandedly lie for no reason."

"That's just the thing professor," Nora threw her arms out, "He won't ever tell us anything."

 _Perhaps he's trying to remain as detached as possible? Who should ever know? Maybe I should have a talk with him…_

"Would you like me to talk to him?"

"N-no!" Pyrrha quickly shook her head, "It's fine! I…I don't want to cause any trouble…"

"And I don't want to get him into trouble" She murmured to herself quietly.

"Well that's your prerogative Ms. Nikos, while I do understand the desire to solve your own internal issues on your own, do note that the professors are here to help if you need it."

"Of course, professor."

None of the three were quite sure how long more they had been walking for before they heard a strange, soft voice singing, it was not easily discernible, but there was a definite marked toned separate from the ambience. They stopped in their tracks as the sound echoed off the buildings around them, all around them, ordinary citizens and soldiers had also stopped their actions, everyone straining their ears and craning their necks to find out where it was coming from.

"Do you hear that?" Nora asked.

"Yes, it appears to be coming from that direction." Glynda pointed out, the three followed it to its source, it grew louder and clearer the closer they got until the professor felt that she could recognize it, "I think…that's Ms. Schnee singing." She lowered her head and stroked her chin.

"What's there to sing about?" Nora looked a little peeved for some reason.

"Well, let's find out."

They eventually came upon an incredible scene; it was one of the many zones that had been set up for the purpose of treating the wounded coming off the frontlines. The stench of blood filled the air and was utterly nauseating, Pyrrha was forced to cover her mouth and look away as best as she could from the more gruesome sights. Despite that though, the atmosphere seemed rather cheery, and even Glynda could not help but smile at the lyrics that spoke of courage and determination in the face of adversity, she was not the only one as it seemed like nearly everyone had a smile on their face. They rounded a corner and there she was:

Weiss Schnee standing on top of a soapbox with microphone in hand, eyes closed as she sang, several soldiers and civilians alike had stopped their work in order to watch, and the wounded were even sitting up straighter to try and see who it was singing.

The rest of the two teams were gathered around, Blake, Jaune, and Ren were sitting at one side watching while Yang and Ruby were standing a shorter distance away, all were paying incredibly close attention to the heiress singing her heart out as she reached an epic crescendo before slowly falling away into the end.

There was no triumphant uproar at the end, no thunderous applause, no loud and ringing cheering. But the smiles that were shown all around on the faces in the area spoke more than any kind of accolade ever would for the heiress as she let out a long breath and let the hand holding the mic drop to one side as Glynda, Pyrrha and Nora walked up slowly from behind.

Weiss stepped off the soapbox breathing heavily as Yang walked up to her, "How was that?" The heiress asked.

"Awesome, you were awesome Weiss, that's all there is to it." Yang grinned widely, "I guess you need a drink and a break?" She held out a water bottle.

"Thank you." Even though she had definitely gone on for longer without a break, it had been exhausting for Weiss as she took long gulps of water and cleared the sweat –or was it rain? It was still drizzling though much less so- from her forehead.

"Man, she makes me wish I'd paid more attention in violin class." Jaune gave a hoarse chuckle as he stood up with Blake and Ren, dusting himself off as he did so, "I could totally have been up there." He seemed a little annoyed.

"Well that's your loss leader!" Nora chimed in, causing all three to spin around.

"Pyrrha? Nora? Professor? When did you get here?" Jaune asked as they approached him.

"Just only Mr. Arc." Glynda answered with a thin smile on her lips as Nora jumped on Ren and hugged him almost to death, "We couldn't help but hear Ms. Schnee's singing and followed it over here."

"Yeah, she's really good," Jaune nodded, Pyrrha felt a slight pang in her heart when he said that, "It makes me a little jealous that she can stir people's hearts like that…" He smiled as Weiss approached them with Yang and Ruby behind her.

She huffed, "A five minute break, and I think I can go for another one." She took another long drink.

"Wow, what's got you so fired up?" Jaune smirked, "The ice queen is melting gang." Chuckles abounded when he said that.

"Oh hush you," Weiss shooed him, "It's my duty as a hunter to help out where I can, besides you've been pretty…busy as well." She looked down, Pyrrha followed her line of sight and nearly jumped.

"Jaune, your hands…!" Pyrrha gasped as Jaune raised his hands now caked in dried blood, "What on Remnant…?" She held out her own hands and slowly took his own in hers, caressing them gently as she stared at them with wide-eyes, she slowly looked up and locked eyes with Jaune.

"I was…well…" He explained softly, "There's a lot of wounded, I was just helping the military out with Blake and Ren." She slowly let go of his hands and took a step back uncertainly.

"I…I see…" She trailed off, holding her arms together to her stomach and not daring to meet his eyes, "So…what happens now?" She asked as the others all proceeded to give the two a wide berth and dispersed slowly to do their own things.

Blake however, stopped a short distance away and turned to watch the two silently, her hearing enabling her to keep them within ear shot at that distance.

"Professor Oobleck is trying to arrange transport for us back to Beacon, he should have it soon, in the meantime, we're just doing our best to help out where we can. Me and Blake on medic duty, Yang is at the field kitchen, I'm not too sure where Ruby's got to and poor Ren is stuck as my assistant." He scratched the back of his head awkwardly as he tried to make a joke.

"Do you…do you mind if I help out too?" Pyrrha asked as she finally looked at him directly.

"Well sure, I'm sure any kind of help would be appreciated," Jaune smiled and nodded, "I won't ask you to do anything though, if it's too much-"

"No!" Pyrrha shook her head fiercely, "I want to help!" She said determinedly, "I'll do my best." She smiled as best as she could.

Jaune returned the smile "Ok, so what can you do?" And then everything stopped dead.

Obviously, Jaune had not meant it in any offensive way, but he had no idea how that one simple question had just slammed into her like a train running at full tilt. Now that she seriously thought about it, she desperately wanted to help, the catch was that she did not really know how, she did not have Weiss's singing, Jaune and Blake's sort-of medical training, Yang and Ren's cookery, or Nora's inexplicable ability to immediately light up everyone's day just by being around.

"Ah…" Her face contorted.

"Pyrrha?" He raised an eyebrow.

"I'm…I think I'll go help Yang." She nodded her head, it was just cooking, she had done her own cooking back home, it was not that hard.

"Alright then, follow me." And off they went, the grim scenes surrounding them making Pyrrha recoil in disgust and fear at them as they went, Jaune looked over his shoulder every now and then to make sure his partner was behind him.

Blake continued following them from a distance, neither seemed to notice her. All of a sudden Pyrrha stopped dead in her tracks and her eyes fixed onto something at the side.

"Pyrrha?" Jaune noticed this and turned in the direction she was facing; his face fell when he realized what it was she was looking at. Right at the side, arranged in rows upon rows, black sheets covering dozens, maybe even hundreds of bodies lying at the side, among those bodies some soldiers walked along emptily, some pulling personal effects from dead friends while others carried more bodies and lined them up before pulling a sheet across them.

"Ah, dammit…" He walked back to where his partner was standing, "Come on, we shouldn't stay here." He tried to pull her away.

"Jaune I…they…I…" Pyrrha stuttered out unable to form a coherent sentence as tears welled in her eyes, "We were…" She was stunned when Jaune closed the distance and wrapped his arms around her tightly.

"It's alright, it's alright, it's ok now…" She threw her arms around him and sobbed loudly into the crook of his neck, tears finally falling and running down her cheeks, Jaune balled both of his hands into tight fists, making sure that he did not stain her own clothes too badly with the blood on his hands.

"There's…so… _so many of them_." Pyrrha choked and sobbed in-between words as she clung to her partner like her life depended on it, "We…couldn't save them." She let her forehead fall onto his shoulder.

"I know." Was all Jaune said as he held her close. She finally began easing up a little, enabling Jaune to pull away just a little while keeping his arms around her, "Look, if its too much for you-"

"No!" Pyrrha looked up into his eyes, "I can help, I should be helping out!" She said, her face set on her task.

"Alright, but don't force yourself ok? You're not to blame for any of this, we all fought and did our best with what we had, you should be proud of that, think well of what you were able to achieve and _not_ what could have been ok? I don't want you feeling responsible or guilty for any of this." Jaune said firmly.

"O-ok." Pyrrha nodded silently.

" _It wasn't your fault_." He finished, "Let's go, I'm sure Yang would appreciate the help."

A little while later, with Weiss once again singing in the distance, Jaune dropped a rather listless Pyrrha off with the blonde brawler at the field kitchen, as Pyrrha got to work boiling water for stew and peeling potatoes, Jaune pulled Yang to the side and said, "Keep a watch on her for me will you? I don't think she's taking it well."

"I know," Yang nodded, "Don't worry; I'll look out for her."

"Thanks a lot Yang, I owe you one." Yang merely grinned and gripped his arm tightly in response. Janue stepped out of the kitchen with a sigh and looked up into the sky curiously; a few drops were still falling here and there amid the echoes of Weiss's voice. He looked down and found himself looking into Blake's amber irises.

"Blake?" He tilted his head to the side, "Were you…you were following me weren't you?"

"Just making sure you were alright." Blake dismissively shrugged.

" _Uh huh_ ," Jaune eyed her a little suspiciously.

"So you want to get back to work or stop here and wait?" She asked blithely.

"Let's…just get back to it." Jaune walked past her and she followed behind.

Blake was not sure what to think; on the one hand she pitied the champion for having to go through such an experience, having to face the sort of thing that could really tear a person up and make them confront themselves on a really emotional level. On the other hand she could not help but feel that the champion was just a tad weak emotionally, and some part of her wondered if the champion would ever truly be able to understand Jaune at _his_ level. Whether or not she could actually understand what it was that he had been through at his age, Blake was not about to bring up the fact that this was the second time he was experiencing something of this magnitude but…

 _Should I even be concerned about this though?_ She wondered to herself, she lowered her head a little, _It's not like relationships are my strong point, so why do I feel annoyed at Jaune's partner…?_ She shook her head of such thoughts as she heard CMO Cross start to shout again.

It was another hour later before the call went out for the students to return to Beacon Academy, it had been a sobering day for all of them. Even so, Weiss got a few cheers and thanks for her performance, and Cross promised to put in a good word for Jaune, Blake and Ren if he could, Yang, Pyrrha and Nora were thanked for helping out at the field kitchen. Despite all that, as they prepared to take the first bullhead out of the city to the Academy, Blake got the feeling that Jaune would have stayed at his post for even longer if his own team did not appear to be rather raw emotionally and mentally. He was the last to board the bullhead and seemed to have an almost longing look as the doors closed and he took a seat beside his partner.

They were perfectly silent on the ride back, most of them were trying to stay awake, some like Ren and Ruby had completely knocked out and had to be carried out once they arrived back, the rest staggered out in their torn, dirty, mud-caked, blood-smeared outfits towards the Academy and the bullhead left to continue ferrying other teams back. Jaune stopped midway down the path and looked up into the still drizzling sky.

"Jaune? What's going on?" Jaune turned to Pyrrha slowly as she shot him a strange look

"It's weird but…it's almost as if the sky itself is crying…" He shook his head and continued on.

* * *

 **RETCON ALERT: I know I said Jaune's twin's name was Janice, I'm changing it to Jasmine to fit the universe better.**

 **An almost humorless chapter is basically what this is, if you can find it even mildly funny I congratulate you.**

 **Other fanfic writers are always giving Jaune all sorts of extraneous abilities that are usually justified via "he has 7 sisters" like it's a catch-all excuse. Now I won't say that they're wrong or that it's a bad thing in anyway, I just think it bears repeating again and again that Jaune is supposed to be a leader first and foremost (even if in canon this is a mostly doubtful prospect), now since he is military-trained it makes sense for him to have some kind of medical skill, same goes for Blake since she used to be a terrorist and all. I also wanted to give more show to the other extraneous abilities that everyone else has.**

 **And if there's one thing I really wanted to show, it was to show the heroes actually being heroes for once, doing whatever they could do, as in the sense of saving people and helping people, not just prancing around in circles waving their awesome-transforming weapons. It's one of the things I wish canon would touch on, showing the lot of them actually trying and doing their best for the random, average citizen, this is almost completely absent in canon and it doesn't really put anyone in that great a light in my earnest opinion.**

 **I know some people are going to complain that Pyrrha got the worse of it, but you see the problem is, so far as I can tell from canon she doesn't have the sheer number of issues that everyone else has, making her a little more innocent possibly compared to even Ruby (Half the MCs have some kind of family issue INCLUDING RUBY). Plus we don't have enough of a backstory to come up with some kind of additional ability to give her for her to contribute like virtually everyone else can.**

 **Of course she was written to die so…there's that.**

 **Some might argue that as aspiring hunters, they would already have prepared themselves mentally to see such sights, my counterpoint is that preparing doesn't make it any less stressful and shocking to deal with the realities of your work, especially when you're really only 17.**

 **As for Blake? Blake is slightly resentful of her in a weird "doesn't really understand what's going on" way, and I don't mean that in the very 'emo/edgy' way. The gist is that she and Jaune connect quite well for being the two who're basically doing the really dirty work of trying to save lives, also they're really the least innocent (If you can even use that word, seriously) of the group and are more used to the nit and grit than the others. The net result is that they probably understand each other quite well.**

 **If ever there was a point for me to start a slowburn knightshade, this would've been it.**

 **I confess there was that thought at the very beginning of writing that maybe I could try for a knightshade fic, ultimately I dropped it because I did not want to bog the story down, but I kept the elements of it so that I know from certain scenes it can come of that way, from their first meeting at initiation, becoming his protector and so on. It was a real consideration at the time.**

 **On another note, I personally didn't like Professor Oobleck's little conversation with Team RWBY back in canon mountain glenn about why they were doing this and how Ruby was the best because she was the only one doing it purely for the sake of doing it. I severely disagree with that notion, so I rewrote him to be far more encouraging of them, pushing them to do something else with their other skills.**

 **Also, a minor missed opportunity to explore Ruby's feelings, but the chapter was long enough so I'll save it for another day.**

 **I do sincerely appreciate your reviews, fave and follows!**


	33. Aftermath

**Holy crap just in time for the new years yes!**

 **This could've been posted a lot earlier, its just that I ended up trying too hard to develop a specific scene too fast and then I decided to just cut it out and put it in the next chapter.**

 **But thank goodness I could get this out before the month was over!**

 **I know its too late to say Merry Christmas and too early to say Happy New Year, so I'll just say:**

 **Happy Holidays readers!**

 **On another note...**

 **And holy crap yes! I finally managed to get to 500 follows! I know it might not seem like much at all, but considering this is the first time I've ever gotten this far in not even a year, this really means a lot to me**

 **So I wanted to say thank you, no really, I meant it.**

 **THANK YOU.**

 **For all your support, I know I always say I appreciate your reviews, faves and follows bla bla bla so on and so forth. But it really means the world to me when I read your reviews telling me that you enjoyed the work despite the inconsistent quality, lack of a anything resembling a romance (For some of you) and lack of a proper direction for the story to end in.**

 **Plus the complaints that Jaune is an asshole and everyone constantly wondering when it will get revealed he's a prince.**

 **In any case, I've spoken enough.**

 **Please enjoy!**

* * *

With the breach closed and secured, the Atlesian Military could finally turn its attention towards cleaning up, one rather large speck of dirt in particular that needed to be handled, though not quite as properly as _he_ would have liked it to be.

"Ouch! Hey watch it! I don't like being manhandled." Roman Torchwick growled as one of the soldiers escorting him shoved him into the truck.

Winter Schnee glared at the redhead from a short distance away, in her opinion, she ought to have gutted that piece of shit with her sword and left him to bleed to death on the road for the nevermores to feast on for all the suffering and death that he had visited on the city and its people, a small part of her wished that she had let Annie pull the trigger back in the tunnel. However Winter was a soldier, she was trained to see the bigger picture, and the bigger picture in this case meant that he was still useful to them as long as he lived, so she was forced to stay her blade and let him go, no matter how much that infuriated her.

"Hurry up and get in there asshole!" The soldier snarled in response and raised his rifle butt menacingly, clearly intending to hit the criminal with it, "Or do you want to feel this again?"

"Sheesh, so uptight…" Roman grunted as he sat down with the guards following him in.

"Now sit still and be good, we might even give you a cookie for good behaviour." Another guard smirked.

"Yeah right…"

The Specialist watched as the truck pulled out of the immediate area of the breach and began rolling away. Thankfully, most of the train had made it through the tunnel hole before it had been collapsed by the Atlesian Military, no thanks to the mercenary and her antics, Roman had basically spent the entirety of the breach in the carriage which had been thrown free of the main engine when they had hit the barrier. Lying still in a minor coma at the side of the road as Grimm scurried all around, he had been completely ignored until the goliaths had finally been defeated and Winter had pulled him half-dazed out of the wreckage a few hours later.

The moment the goliath had fallen and the breach had finally been closed and secured, Winter assumed that she would have to continue on and push out the Grimm that were closing on the city's perimeter. To her surprise however, the General had ordered her off the line and to the rear, apparently acknowledging her already rather extensive contribution to the fight and the need for a break in combat lest the Specialist collapse from exhaustion. While a part of her earnestly wanted to insist on continuing the fight, the more sensible part noted that in her less-than-ideal-shape, she would only be endangering herself and others further, so she had done as the General had ordered and had even managed to get something to eat along the way for lunch. Even if it had to be the Military's brand off usually unsavory MREs, but who was she to complain anyway?

She had even managed to cram in a short nap along with it.

Disciple Team had finally been extracted after an entire night and morning of being holed up at Mountain Glenn; thankfully all four got out mostly unscathed with the Grimm focused primarily on the city. Now Winter was standing by at the landing pad watching the bullhead as it descended and opened its doors, spilling the four-man team out onto the ground, with the whole incident beginning to wind down and units were slowly called back to their base, she felt it was prudent to start on their report and get it done early. She personally hated putting things off even if she had an excuse, besides she had to get them to agree to something first.

"Ma'am." Sergeant Seamus saluted.

"At ease, good to see that you made it out in one piece," Winter returned it and waved them over.

"It wasn't so bad ma'am, we didn't have much to do besides stay in one place, not like there was a lot of Grimm in the area anyway." Seamus answered as they walked to the headquarters buildings, "Besides, if you don't mind me asking, how badly was the city hit?" He asked.

"Not as bad as it could've been, though much worse than anyone'd hoped." Winter sighed, "Since you're finally back we should probably report to General Ironwood and get this over with as soon as possible."

None of them were in any apparent disagreement as they walked to the rectangular building. Right outside the entrance Winter stopped and turned to face all four of them.

"I have a bit of a favor to ask of you guys if you don't mind?" They looked at each other uncertainly as she said this.

"What… _kind_ of favor ma'am?" Taylor spoke this time.

"Don't make _any_ mention of the huntress that accompanied us… _me_ ," She said sharply, "That matter I'll settle personally, don't even include it in your written report later, everything happened as it did, but only I was present to infiltrate the base, I made the decision to attack, and I boarded the train alone, understood?" She said firmly as the others continued looking rather uncertainly at each other.

"Any reason why ma'am?" Taylor asked again.

"Nothing you need to know about Sergeant." She replied flatly, "Do I have your agreement?"

"Well, sure I guess-"

" _Do I have you and your team's agreement sergeant_?" Winter asked more forcefully, the team exchanged slow nods and shrugs with each other.

"Yes ma'am." Taylor answered, although his voice wavered just a little.

"Perfect."

A short while later, and the five of them slowly filed into General James Ironwood's office together, they stood at attention as one and saluted. The General ordered them at ease and looked each of them over, although the wear of battle was still visible on Winter's face, Disciple Team however seemed a little twitchy at seeing the General himself.

"Settle down you lot, now what do you have to report?" He asked sternly.

"White Fang had a large and very well established base of operations sir; they've clearly been there for months, probably before we even got here." Taylor fished in one of his pockets and brought out several photographs which he passed to the General who started looking through them, "Multiple patrols through the area, stockpiles, even heavy machinery… _our own_ machinery."

"Estimated troop strength?" The General's eyes narrowed on seeing a photo of one of the Atlesian Paladin prototypes.

"More than a hundred sir, possibly a lot more, when Specialist Frost boarded the train, a whole lot of them were left behind, we gathered what we could from a distance before we hightailed it out of the caverns and back to the surface."

"I took out a dozen or so over the course of my infiltration and a few dozen more on the train along with the stolen prototypes." Winter added in.

"Plus we took out a few while providing support."

"I see," Ironwood nodded as he set the photographs down, "So we might still have somewhere in the region of…sixty? Left behind at Mountain Glenn." He looked to them.

"Not sure sir but its' unlikely they escaped, the area got swarmed over when bombs on the train carriages blew holes in the tunnel and flooded them with Grimm. Even if there are survivors it's doubtful that they got away unless they have a secondary base somewhere else."

"Hmm, do you think they might have another base?" Ironwood pushed away from his desk and stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"Sir I don't think I'm in a position to-"

"I'm asking you for your input based on your experience Frost." Winter went a little rigid at that.

"Well sir," She began slowly, "If you had asked me that before this mission, I would've told you that it wasn't likely because they have no identifiable supply base and although hiding a base out in the wilderness is possible, it's wouldn't be practical for them as they aren't able to operate as openly as we can and maintaining a line of supply would be difficult. Now though…" She trailed off to take a breath.

"Now Specialist…?" Ironwood leaned forward with his elbow on the desk.

"Now I'm not so sure sir, if the White Fang can maintain an underground base like this for so long, then there might still be other bases out there that haven't been found. It must also be noted that they had the cooperation of a major criminal and his group, this potentially explains how the necessary supplies could be smuggled out of the city and into a base set up where none would look for it." Winter explained as best as she could.

"Hmm," Ironwood furrowed his brow and continued thinking while the others stood in front of his desk in silence, "We need to investigate this further, the Vytal Festival is coming up and I want it to run as smoothly as it can, for now we'll retire and patch up, but Sergeant I want you and your team ready to go in the event we have fresh intelligence, I want to root these troublemakers out before anything worse happens."

"No problem sir, we'll be right there when you need us." Taylor nodded.

"Alright then, anything else to report?"

"No sir." Taylor answered.

"Sir." Winter responded simultaneously

They exchanged curious glances at one another.

"…Sergeant you're dismissed, get your men cleaned and rested." The team snapped to attention with a stiff 'sir!' and saluted, Ironwood waved them down and they filed out of the room quietly. As the team slowly filed out of the office and walked away, Winter remained standing right where she was, still looking at the General rather intently.

"Yes, is there something else Specialist?" General Ironwood asked.

"Yes General, when I boarded the train, I found something quite disturbing," Winter sucked in her lips as the General went tense again.

He gestured to his chair, "Have a seat Specialist." He nodded as Winter sat down gingerly, "Give it to me straight."

"Sir, in one of the train cars, I found a massive stockpile of weapons and ammo, coupled with the number of men they had, and the Paladins they had at their disposal, it seemed to me the White Fang and Torchwick had definitely been planning this operation for a _long_ time sir. I also found the timing of it to be extraordinarily coincidental, it's just _too_ perfect, if we had not received that intel at that exact point in time and then proceeded to execute that mission within a day, then the result could have been-"

"Disastrous," The General answered for her, Winter could only nod slowly, " _Yes_ , given a few more days, the remaining hunter teams based in Beacon Academy would have left the city for their missions, leaving the city entirely in our hands and any available hunters in the surrounding vicinity, of which there would have been few as most would have been out together with the trainees." He concluded easily as he grit his teeth, "If the breach had hit during that time, there would have been no one available to respond to the crisis, there would have been complete chaos. We would not have had the resources to fight back effectively; it might even have necessitated an evacuation of the outer city." He placed his elbows on the table and clasped his hands together with his eyes closed.

"…That's correct sir," Winter said after a momentary pause, "So I think we really need to find out where we went wrong here."

"What're you getting at Specialist?" The General opened his eyes and lifted an eyebrow.

"I'm saying _someone_ screwed up somewhere sir." Winter flatly stated, "Such a massive operation involving the seizure of so much dust, equipment and the usage of a _train_ should not have gone unnoticed, and yet they slipped through our fingers and were dark until the very last moment when we barely intercepted them in time, and even then look at the amount of damage that was caused. We can't survive by such luck General; it's folly to think that we'll be as lucky next time." She sniffed.

The General nodded and sighed; he got out of his chair and walked to the window, looking out over the base with his back to Winter, silently contemplating the day's events.

 _And I still don't know where exactly your intel came from._ Winter wanted to question the General on that, but was aware that she might be stepping over her boundaries just a little too far, so she held her tongue, her eyes lit up momentarily.

 _Wait a minute, didn't Annie mention that she was sent by the Crown Prince to investigate White Fang activity at Mountain Glenn? Does this mean that the intel came from the House of Vale itself?_ Winter leaned back in her chairand folded her arms, bowing her head in thought as her eyes flicked back and forth, _No this makes no sense, there's no reason for the Royal Family to send one of its own to investigate the area and then proceed to alert the Atlesian Military at the same time, and Annie said bumping into me was a coincidence so that must mean…_

Winter's eyes went wide in realization; _the intel came from the same person? Or at least the same source, but who would have a vested interest in doing something like setting both the Royal Family and the Atlesian Military on the same track? Is it just because of what the White Fang has done to them or…?_

"Whether or not someone screwed up is irrelevant now." Her thoughts were interrupted when General Ironwood turned back to her with a grim expression on his face as he sat back down.

"…Sir?"

"What matters now is that we need to find out who was responsible for this and stop them before they do anything worse."

" _Adam Taurus_ ," The General's eyes widened on hearing that name, "I heard his name get mentioned during the course of my infiltration. Though I failed to either see him for myself or detect his presence beyond those few words."

The General leaned back and stroked his chin thoughtfully for a moment, mulling over the problem slowly, "Then that's where you'll focus your attention on Specialist, continue conducting your own investigation into the White Fang, find anything you can, any further associates they might have, their warehouses, bases…whatever you can dig up."

"And the issue with gaps in our intelligence sir?"

" _I_ will handle that," He answered, "is there anything else?"

"No, thank you sir," She said as she got up and began to walk to the door, as her hand touched the doorknob the General spoke up again.

"Oh, and by the way Winter?" Winter turned as he said it.

"Sir?"

"Do your best to be discreet, no more people have to be aware than necessary, understood?"

"Perfectly sir."

With that done, Winter quickly dismissed herself from the General's presence and headed to her own quarters, a small room in another building that happily for her, had its own attached shower and a small personal office. She planned on a nice, long hot bath first and foremost, and then she would get to typing out a proper report for the General and for filing purposes, although she was quite tired she would prefer not leaving it to tomorrow. On the other hand, tomorrow she intended to immediately get back to investigating the White Fang as soon as she possibly could, she would first need to get a lead from somewhere and then…

 _Ok, let's think about that tomorrow, for the rest of today focus on what needs to be done first,_ She entered her room with a groan, the whole day and night, had proven quite exhausting even for a well-trained and professional soldier like her, night was now drawing down upon the kingdom, marking the end of the day.

She shucked off her combat fatigues which stank and tossed them to one side, stepping into the shower and letting the cool water run over her. She took extra time in this instance, making sure to scrub off a whole day's accumulated sweat and dirt, making sure she was cleaned off properly, although the General wanted her to start as soon as she could, that did not mean she could not use this time for herself for as long as she could.

After making sure to scrub herself down properly and wash her hair out of all the accumulated dirt and dust of an entire day's hard fighting, she finally stepped out of the shower, drying her hair with a towel before wrapping it around her body and toweling off the rest. Walking over to her closet and taking out a fresh set of clothing and laying it out, she dressed herself and sat down in front of her computer, booting it up she prepared to begin typing out her report when…

*BRING**RING**RING**RING*

She cursed loudly in surprise and banged one fist on the table, baring her teeth in annoyance and letting out a growl of agitation, she seized up her scroll, her face contorting in a combination of disgust and frustration when she saw the person who was identified as the caller.

 _Oh god…what does she want now?_ Winter groaned as she pressed the connect button.

"What do you want Annie?" Winter made sure that every last bit of that frustration and agitation came out in her voice as she rubbed her forehead.

A sharp laugh came over the other end of the line, "You sound kinda tired Winnie, so I guess I'll just keep this brief. Did you manage to do that thing that I asked you to help me out with?" Annie asked.

* * *

 _ **A few hours ago,**_

"Hey, _where_ _the fuck_ have you been all this time?" Winter frowned and asked in an annoyed tone of voice as she held the scroll up to her ear.

"Oh I was just returning the guns to Mikhail; he was such a sweetie to lend them to me, I really hope he gets a reimbursement somehow, I nearly cleaned out his whole stock of full-caliber rifle rounds." Annie turned back briefly in the direction of the breach before she continued walking away, "He was going to give them to me after watching me use them but I just gave it back anyway, sadly the Royal Legion doesn't use the same cartridge type so I couldn't really keep them."

" _Uh…huh_ …" Winter did not sound especially amused.

"Yeah so after that I figured I'd probably just catch a ride back to the lonely fortress or hike if I need to since your reinforcements showed up and I wasn't really needed anymore. But anyway how's the whole breach thing going anyway? You must've cleaned those bastards up pretty easily by now, that was a pretty damn big commotion you had going on over there." She commented.

"Yeah…" Winter rolled her eyes on the other side of the line, "Funny that you should mention that," Winter turned away from the scene in front of her and began walking to the opposite side of the building, "I had a _goliath_ blast its way out of the tunnel… _two_ of them actually." Winter's eyebrows jumped as she let herself sit down at the edge of the rooftop and let her legs dangle.

"Oh so _that's_ what the fuss was all about." Annie laughed, "I was beginning to think you guys were going to try to level the city itself with the amount of firepower you were bringing in… _with me still in it._ " She snorted, "I wager you guys had a fun time knocking that thing straight."

"Yeah nice of you to miss out on all of that _fun_ ," Winter sarcastically responded, "I'd have thought that you would've wanted in on that kind of thing."

"Who? Me? Lil' ol' me?" Annie replied in mock innocence, "Aw shucks Winnie, I don't know, I would've but uh…heh." The mercenary princess scoffed, "I kinda gotta run now."

Winter lifted an eyebrow, "What? Do you have an appointment or something?" She chortled.

"Nope, speaking of which, I need to ask you for a favor."

"You're in _no_ position to ask for any favors here." Winter deadpanned.

Annie seemed to pause for a moment, "…Well in any case I'll just lay it out for you," either she was not listening or did not care a lick, "I really need you to keep it on the down-low about me being around for the breach thing."

Now Winter's interest was perked and she sat up straighter, "Oh? And what's all this about then?" A mischievous smile appeared on her face as she sat crossed legged, "A little secret huh? That might cost you some more." Annie went silent at that and Winter allowed herself to smirk, she finally had one up on the mercenary.

"Yeah yeah shut up already," Winter swore she could see the mercenary scowling from behind the screen but continued nevertheless, "Well see…no one's supposed to really know about me being here, you and me meeting really was…heh…it really was the biggest coincidence, I didn't even know you were gonna be there."

"Tell me about it," Winter rolled her eyes, "I didn't exactly get the impression you were here just to look around in your old stomping grounds, so what's going on anyway? It's not exactly like you to be so secretive."

"You were there investigating the possibility of a White Fang base right? I was sent to…well basically do the same." Annie explained, "Poke around for those rotten animal-"

"Hold on a minute…sent?" Winter lifted an eyebrow.

"Mmhmm," Annie hummed and nodded, "My dear uncle saw fit to give me something to do beside hang around the fortress and the surrounding area blasting Grimm all-day-all-night, so he sent me off to do a little mission to investigate what was going on, naturally of course between the two of us I'd say the operation is pretty much wrecked."

"Your uncle…?" Winter stroked her chin before her eyes widened in a sudden realization, "You mean the Crown Prince."

"Yes that one, in any case since I'm the black sheep and… _quite disowned_ , he decided to send me, plausible deniability and all that jazz."

"Ok? So if they can just claim they don't know about whatever it is that you get up to, what's the problem?"

"…Do you _really_ want people suspecting that the Royal Family is meddling in the affairs of the council? There is a clear jurisdiction here, Mountain Glenn does not fall under the purview of the Royal Enclaves," Annie sounded rather exasperated, "Ergo not His Majesty's territory. If word got out that a person nominally related to the Royal Family had been involved…there could be… _repercussions_."

Winter let out a long sigh, finally realizing where this was going, "Guess I'm in the same boat as you then, can't exactly have the Vale Council realize that the Atlesian Military is conducting operations in secret on its territory either."

"See? We already understand each other better, so do I have your agreement or not?"

Winter clicked her tongue in an annoyed manner but finally gave in, "Yeah, I'll keep it hushed up for you."

" _Fantastic_! Then see ya around Winnie, well then I'd better high-tail it out of here _just_ in case someone recognizes me." And with that the connection cut itself, leaving Winter on the rooftop.

* * *

"Yeah…" Winter nodded, "I…managed to…sort it out." The specialist replied slowly.

"Are you trying to convince me or convince yourself?" The mercenary sounded quite skeptical.

"Alright I give," Winter sighed, "I got the silence of the recon team and the lieutenant, and I think General Ironwood doesn't really suspect anything." She admitted.

"Oh _that guy_ , what happened anyway?"

"I managed to cover for you pretty well, it's not like a lot of people saw you anyway, even if he suspects I'm hiding something I don't think he has a hint that it might be someone like you."

"I see, lucky me huh?"

"Yes, lucky you indeed." Winter agreed.

"Well thanks then Winnie, guess I do kinda owe you one this time huh?" Surprisingly, the mercenary seemed genuinely thankful, Winter did not detect any of the usual snarky attitude and smarm that Annie usually exuded.

"Actually, since you did call now…" Hearing the mercenary's thanks triggered a thought in the Specialist's head, and she decided to act on it, "I suppose I should thank you as well."

"What for?"

"I…" Winter bit her lip and shut her eyes, sucking in a lungful of air and letting it out slowly, miraculously the mercenary held her tongue, "I just realized that I didn't manage to say this earlier, but I wanted to thank you…" She paused for a moment, "For…for saving my life back there."

There was a long pause on the other end of the line before the voice came back up, "When did I do that?"

Winter wanted to bang her head on the table until either it or her head split open, and yet the mercenary princess again sounded rather genuine with her curiosity and her voice carried not a hint of mockery, "You know…when we crashed into the barrier and you pulled me from the rubble?" There was a sharp laugh on the other end, "You didn't have to do it, but you did anyway, and saved me from a rather horrible death."

"Hah! I guess that makes us even then?" The specialist swore she could the mercenary grinning widely.

"On the contrary, _ahem…_ " Winter now smirked and cleared her throat, "I still managed to cover your ass for you like you requested, so you still owe me one." She spun around in her chair.

"Aw really Winnie? You gonna do this to me?" Annie whined on the other end of the line, "And after all we've been through together…"

"You did this to yourself, stop complaining so much." Winter did not bother disguising the smirk on her face.

"Maybe, maybe not, we'll see, I'll see you around… _Winter_." And before the Specialist could respond to hearing her name get called properly, the connection had been cut. She set the scroll down slowly and leaned back shaking her head bemusedly.

 _What a strange princess…well her whole family is pretty strange anyway._ Winter set her scroll down gently.

* * *

 _ **Beacon Academy,**_

The clock ticked past 9pm as the dirty, damp, mud-caked, blood-smeared members of Team RWBY and JNPR finally made it back to their dorms. The headmaster had greeted them upon their arrival, congratulating them for a job well-done and assuring them that any debriefing could wait until tomorrow, they had been extremely tankful for that, for all eight were completely exhausted physically and mentally as they trudged through the hallway silently, the sights and sounds of the breach still ringing in their eyes and ears. Ruby led the crew from the front while Jaune and Pyrrha brought up the back, Most of them wavered back and forth listlessly as they finally stood in front of their dorms on opposite sides of the hallway.

"Goodnight gals see you in the morning," Jaune mumbled to the other team, not entirely caring if they heard him as he fumbled to get his scroll out. He finally managed to tap it on the reader and unlock the door, stumbling through it with the rest of his team.

"I need to sleep," Ren groaned as he hit the floor on his butt in front of his bed, "But I'm not dirtying my sheets like this."

"Sleep on the floor then," Jaune smirked as he sat down at his desk, "I'm sure its comfortable enough in our state, how's your head anyway?"

"Ugh," Ren closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, "It's fine but I think I'll sleep a thousand years tonight." He leaned his head back.

" _Well then_ …" He looked to Nora –who was lying spread-eagled on the floor- and Pyrrha who had found her way to _her_ desk, "Before anyone takes the shower, I need to wash my hands." His hands still felt sticky and dirty despite wiping off most of the blood, and as he turned the tap on and tried to rub the rest out with soap, his thoughts invariably began to drift elsewhere.

 _I wonder how on Remnant the breach even occurred, it couldn't just have been an accident that the wall blocking the tunnel was just shattered or so I'd heard, maybe we'll hear more about this tomorrow or something…_ He finally turned off the tap once he felt more comfortable

He stepped out just as Nora stepped in; they exchanged nods as they passed each other.

He settled back down in his chair and looked over the other two members, Ren looked like he was on the verge of knocking out right there and then, Pyrrha had her head bowed low with her elbows on her thighs, her hands were clasped together and she was fidgeting about. He reached out and squeezed her upper arm tightly; she went tense for a moment and looked up with a questioning look.

"Jaune?"

"Are you alright?" He asked softly as he lowered his own head to meet her eyes, she immediately looked away so he could not see her face flush as red as her hair. She let one of her hands go to his own hand and entwined her fingers with his own.

"I'm…I'll be fine, I'm pretty tough too." She made a strained smile as she turned to him again.

He let go with a nod, she massaged the part of her arm where he had touched her, it tingled in a strange way and despite her tired state, it made her want…

 _No no no,_ Pyrrha rubbed her forehead, _This is not the time for this, I can still try again once things have calmed down, right now I'll just focus on…_ She let out a yawn, _Getting to bed, gosh I didn't know peeling carrots and potatoes could be that tiring…maybe it was because there were so many…_

Meanwhile Jaune sat quietly on his own chair, he knew she had feelings for him, he was not nearly _that_ dense enough, after all what else could she have meant when she had said that he was, quote "the kind of guy I like being here with - someone who just saw me for me." Remarkably, that had only barely been probably two days ago, and now here they were, he still was not entirely sure what he was feeling for her, she was nice enough as his partner, perhaps a little _too nice_ , in that respect he was almost positively certain she deserved better, someone more honest and less prone to dodging questions.

After Nora it was Pyrrha's turn, and after that Jaune hauled Ren to his feet and stuffed him into the shower, and only after Ren had zombie-walked out had he finally gotten his turn, and once he was done, the rest of his team was already knocked out, they had not even turned out the lights.

"Sleep tight you guys," He smirked as he flicked the switch off.

 _One last thing to take care of before I go to bed._ He took up his scroll and tapped a specific contact that he had not heard from.

"Ah! Your highness?" Gravelyn answered.

"Hey Gravelyn…" and then Jaune was momentarily lost for words, what was he supposed to do? Berate his protector for not having been there for him when he as in trouble? Report that he was doing fine? Tell him off for not having tried to contact him up until this point? Say that-

"Hello? Your highness? You there?" Jaune snapped out his thoughts.

"Yeah uh, just called to say I was alright, I know I told you I was going out on a mission and…"

"And?"

"And…nothing really."

"Uh _huh_ , well I let you go without me being confident that you and your team could take care of each other without my intervention, I do hope you were sensible enough to avoid that nasty business of the breach?"

"Actually I…" Jaune stopped again, anything he said was likely to be reported back, and he was not going to have to deal with another round of tongue-lashing from his uncle for getting that deeply involved in something he ought not to have been involved in, "Yeah the thing was over before I got back, crazy huh? The mission got called off shortly after I reached when the recall went out, but it was over before I got back."

"I see, well I guess then there's nothing to worry about huh?" Gravelyn responded, "How are you holding up? It must have been… _difficult_ … _experiencing_ all that again."

"Huh, it wasn't that bad actually," Jaune smirked, "Maybe I'm getting used to this."

"…Those would _not_ be comforting words to anyone who heard them your highness." His protector stated flatly.

"Yeah I know…it's just…you don't have to worry about me."

"I should hope not, your family trusts you to keep trouble at arm's length your highness…preferably further, not dive into it."

"Uh huh, well I'm tired and I'm going to get some sleep, see you around Mr. Wells."

"Take care your highness, goodnight." And the connection was cut.

Jaune fell down onto his bed uncaring of the fact that his hair was still damp; he had little time to think as he passed out the moment his head hit the pillow.

* * *

" _Stand fast men! Hold the line! Not one! Step! Back! Stand together as one and throw these creatures back to the abyss from whence they came! We shall be the rock on which the dark crashes upon, and we will never falter!" Julius cried out from the top of his horse as a horde of Grimm prepared to crash straight into his lines._

 _In front of him, huddled in tight lines and rows, with their shields locking together and long pikes pushed far out in front of them. His men stood ready with grim faces and beating hearts, ready to give their all in the defense of the kingdom. A few -particularly the new replacements- were clearly trembling in fear; some were saying prayers quietly to themselves, most were doing their best to put on a brave face, but all knew exactly what they had to do, their singular duty to stop the encroaching tide of darkness in its tracks. They were the last line of defense between them and their beloved city and loved ones._

 _Either they succeeded here or they would all die trying._

" _Remember! There is no shame in fear! There is only shame in letting fear take you! Show courage on your faces! And your hearts will follow! For every man that stands with me today shall be my brother in arms forevermore!" He raised his sword high as the tide of Grimm; snarling, roaring, screeching as they came drew closer._

 _His army held its position on a large, open field with mountains on both sides to form a wide pass between them._

" _ARCHERS READY!" He screamed as hundreds of bowmen fitted their bows with specialized dust arrows, "FIRE!" A shrill screech filled the air as hundreds of arrows launched themselves into the air above the heads of those in front, slamming into the horde and exploding, Grimm died by the dozens._

 _He would have brought up more heavy equipment in the form of catapults and ballistae if he had had the time to, unfortunately having to throw his army together on short notice and force march them all the way to the pass meant that he had left almost all of his heavy machines behind to make all haste._

 _He let his captains take over the volleying of the arrows and paid attention to the front of the line, the dark beasts were surging forward relentless, yet his men held fast with their shields and long spears, alongside volleys of arrows the men threw javelins right above and into the front of the horde, skewering several, ensuring that their numbers did not become too big such that they started to overwhelm the spearmen._

 _On the flanks his men had had just enough time to hammer several sharp stakes into the ground to slow down the advance of the horde so that men wielding large, two-handed blades could finish them off. And so the battle raged on, the horde would be thinned out and weakened by arrows and javelins as they came, and yet they still came, on and on in a never-ending black mass of teeth and claws._

 _Angered shouts_

 _Furious yells_

 _Pained cries_

 _Screaming as a man was torn to shreds_

 _The moans of the dying_

 _The roar of man and beast locked in mortal combat_

" _Milord! Our right is giving way!" Octavius shouted out and pointed fervently to the location, indeed the stakes had been flattened and now the beasts were spilling over onto their flank and attempting to surround them._

" _Then we ride to them!" Julius donned his helmet and fixed his cape on, "Rally to me men! For the empire!" He shouted and rode forward with Octavius and numerous others coming close behind him._

" _Stand your ground! Give them not one more inch!" He called out as he dismounted from his horse and charged into the fray with his short sword, hacking and slashing his way through the horde as cold steel pushed back fiercely against fang and claw._

 _A deafening roar sounded that gave the men a momentary pause, a lumbering beast taller than any other they had seen crashed forward through the smaller Grimm, tossing and flattening them as it headed straight for the defenders. With another roar it shoulder-checked its way through a wall of spears heading straight for Julius with its mouth opening snarling horribly. Julius quickly dived to the ground under a sweeping blow that sent men flying every which way, he quickly rolled and came back up right on its flank, swinging his sword and cutting deep into it, it cried out in pain and lashed out furiously, the General did his best to dodge the attack back could not jump back in time as its fist collided with him dead center and sent him spiraling across the ground. All this amidst the noisy battlefield as men sought again and again to throw back the Grimm._

 _Julius struggled to get to his feet just as the beast came upon him again._ _His eyes went wide and his face paled as the breast raised one large fist and brought it down on his head._

* * *

A scream tore through the morning air.

Pyrrha nearly jumped out of bed and onto the floor below at the deathly wail, she clawed herself back into position on her bed and looked up to see a ghastly sight.

Jaune's body was twitching fiercely as he inhaled and exhaled rapidly, his face was a deathly pallor as his mouth opened and closed and great gasps of air exuded from it, he gurgled loudly, eyes rolling into the back of his head.

"Jaune!" She rushed over and grabbed a hold of him, "It's alright! It was just a dream!" She shook him frantically, both of his hands came up and grabbed onto her arms, they locked eyes, Jaune's eyes were a whirlpool of pain and anger, Pyrrha almost pulled away but hung on tightly.

"Breathe Jaune! Just breathe, you're ok! You're in Beacon Academy!" She insisted, gripping his arms as tightly as possible, even though he had told her months ago about his nightmares, she had never in her life imagined they could be so intense. Her words seemed to get through to Jaune as He slowly stopped shaking and his eyes focused on hers, he blinked once…twice…

"P-P-Pyr…rha…?" He forced out.

"Yes! Yes it's me!" Pyrrha smiled brightly as Jaune slowly released his cast-iron grip on her, and then all of a sudden he gave her a great shove that sent her toppling over the bed, Pyrrha cried out as she landed roughly on her rump, she watched as Jaune darted into the bathroom where he could be heard heaving and throwing up violently, coughing and hacking as he did so.

She got up and approached him gingerly, watching him breathing heavily as he knelt beside the toilet seat, gently laying a hand on his shoulder and squeezing it tightly with a worried expression as she waited for him to finish up. The champion released him as he fell back onto his hands with saliva running down his mouth; he had been dry heaving the whole time. Pyrrha had no idea how to handle the situation as Jaune continued sucking air like a marathon runner, he looked like the face of death as he wiped his mouth of with the back of his hand and slowly began to control his breathing.

"What did you see?" She asked quietly as she knelt in front of him.

"I…I saw…I saw my death…" Jaune's eyes widened, "No…that's wrong." He sucked in a breath of air and held it there, "I…I _died_." He looked down at his trembling hands, with a sharp gasp he pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes as images of the Grimm flashed through his mind.

Pyrrha reached out slowly and grasped one hand with the other, Jaune turned to her with a curious expression and she slowly smiled, "It's ok Jaune, I'm here for you," She entwined her fingers with his and them, "This…hasn't happened before has it?" She asked.

"Well…no." Jaune answered as he finally caught his breath with a sigh, "Every dream I've had up until now was never as bad as this…it…it really felt like I had died when…"

"When?"

"When the Grimm smashed my head in." He deadpanned.

Pyrrha paled a little at that, the thought of seeing her leader dying caused a lump in her throat to form. She slowly turned and sat beside Jaune, keeping their fingers intertwined all the while. They stayed like that do some time, it seemed like an eternity had passed before Jaune finally began to stand up, he pulled Pyrrha up as he did so before releasing her hand, Pyrrha rubbed her own hand, still tingling from his touch as he washed his face and gargled into the sink.

"Let's change and go, the professors said there would be a debriefing today, we shouldn't miss it." He stated firmly.

 _And just like that, he's already gone back to being himself…_ Pyrrha sighed inwardly.

A little while later, they found themselves at Nora Valkyrie's breakfast…among other things, the area was abuzz with students eagerly talking and boasting about what they had done during the breach, both teams had already gathered at their designated sitting area and were munching away at breakfast…or at least they would have been munching away at breakfast. Yang, Ren and Nora were still pretty busy, leaving Ruby, Blake and Weiss at the table as Jaune and Pyrrha joined them.

"Good morning everyone," Jaune tried to sound somewhat chipper.

"…Morning." Ruby answered softly, Jaune looked over the table, Ruby's plate only had a trio of cookies that looked like they had not been touched, Blake's had a tuna sandwich with only a single bite take out and Weiss had nothing but her tea as she checked something on her scroll.

"So how're we…" Jaune stopped himself, after the previous night, it was pointless to ask how everyone was holding up, from the way they were all acting he could wager the only answer was:

Not very well.

"Guess no one's very hungry huh?"

"…Not really." Blake sighed.

"Just so you know, we're managed to get on the news." Weiss held up her scroll for Jaune to see, on it was a picture of Weiss Schnee standing on a soapbox and singing from the night before, the picture was wide enough that Jaune could see his and the others backs as they watched Weiss sing.

"Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company captured here singing at one of the infield medical stations set up to provide assistance for the wounded. The rest of her team can be seen around her…" Jaune read the caption slowly as Weiss withdrew the scroll, "You mean _you_ managed to get on the news." He corrected her.

"Untrue!" Weiss insisted as she withdrew the scroll and began tapping at it, "Look at this one." She held it back up.

The picture showed a distant shot of the kitchen where Yang had been working at, "A student believed to be Yang Xiao Long from Team RWBY, perpetrators of the infamous highway 42 incident, shown here serving food to a line of soldiers." Jaune read the caption out loud for the benefit of the others.

Weiss withdrew the scroll again, "Whoa…I wasn't expecting that…" Was all Jaune could say, "Are there any others?"

"Maybe, those were just the ones I could find." Weiss kept her scroll and lifted the cup of tea to her lips.

"Well maybe this way you guys will finally be let off for the highway incident thing." He seemed relieved.

"Hopefully," Weiss nodded in agreement.

"Isn't it a little early to get your hopes up?" Blake rolled her eyes.

"Hey I'm just saying." Weiss held her hands up and then looked back at Jaune, "If you need tea I already brewed some in the teapot over there." She gestured over to another table."

"Thanks, you want anything Pyrrha?" He looked at his partner.

She smiled and shook her head slightly, "No thank you Jaune, I'm...I'll wait for Yang and Ren." An awkward smile crossed her features.

"Ok…suit yourself."

It was a long time later that all of the students not just from Beacon but also from the other academies had gathered together in the auditorium, it bustled with activity, many of the students noisily comparing notes and sharing their feats and accomplishments, claims of the numbers of Grimm that individuals had slain were bursting through the roof. Teams RWBY and JNPR could only gape at a few of them.

"What have they got to celebrate?" Yang muttered as one particularly loud student claimed a nonsensical thousand Grimm destroyed for himself, "Part of a city is in ruins and people are dead."

"I for one agree, this is idiotic…" Weiss scowled and folded her arms.

"Lay off the commentary you two," Jaune reprimanded, "We know what we did, we helped where we could and that's enough."

"Still, it feels…wrong somehow." Even Pyrrha seemed rather perturbed as she rubbed her hands together.

Her leader sighed, "We can't _all_ be doom and gloom; you don't want to attract more Grimm to the city do you?" Both eyebrows jumped.

"I didn't mean that-!"

" _I know_." Jaune quickly said, "Just let it go, _all of you_ , we've already done our part." He looked back and forth between the others.

"Headmaster is here." Blake nodded to the stage in front as Headmaster Ozpin walked up to it and tapped the mic several times to get the attention of all the students, and very soon the auditorium was silent and they waited for him to begin his speech.

"A very good morning to all of you," He began slowly, looking around the room, "I trust you all have had a good night's rest? I imagine that all of you would need it after all the excitement that had passed just the day before." The barest hint of a smile crossed his face s his eyes passed over Teams RWBY and JNPR, "Suffice to say, I'd like to thank _each and every one of you_ for the effort you put in and a job very well done. Despite the initial circumstances, you all pulled together and were able to close the breach as well as fend off a sudden spike in the density of Grimm surrounding the city and the various outlying villages, some of you did this _in spite_ of the fact that you did not have your escorts with you, that is something that _all of you_ can be proud off." He nodded and began clapping slowly, "And I think you all deserve a round of applause for yourselves."

And just like that the auditorium erupted into wild cheering and whooping, students shook hands and slapped each other on the back heartily, waving their arms in the air wildly with wide grins all around, Ozpin fell silent for a moment as the cheering slowly died down and attention was once again refocused on the headmaster.

"I would like to extend a special thanks to the nine 'first-response' teams who were deployed in the opening hours of the breach, whether by fate or chance you lot were the only ones available for the city's defence, and you all unhesitatingly and unwaveringly stepped up to fulfil the duties that we entrusted to you, and thanks to your earnest efforts, many innocent civilians were saved and are able to continue on with their lives." He looked between the teams that were sitting up straight with especially bright expressions, "And of course, I should not forget the work of Teams RWBY and SSSN, both of whom were _instrumental_ in the final push to seal the breach, no matter what may have transpired before, the both of you can hold your heads high and be proud of what you accomplished."

At this the teams could not help but smile and exchange nods with each other even as the rest of the auditorium whispered amongst themselves.

"But…" He trailed off slowly as he focused his look right at Team JNPR, "I suppose it would be remiss of me to mention those two without also mentioning Team JNPR, shot down in the middle of the city on the way to their mission at the very start of the breach, with half the team wounded, they fought their way through the city until they found reinforcements, whereupon they turned around and proceeded to fight their way back to the breach, and even once the breach was over, you continued to assist in the aftermath tending to the wounded alongside Team RWBY." He paused to let that sink in.

"The city extends its thanks to all of you, and for your part in the battle I believe some small form of reward is in order." He smirked, "For the first responders, your credit for the remainder of this term has been fulfilled." Gasps abounded as he said that, "And as for the rest of you…classes have been cancelled for today and tomorrow, take the time to rest and enjoy yourselves, now I won't keep any of you any longer, dismissed! Teams RWBY and JNPR stay back for a moment." And with one last loud cheer the students began piling out of the auditorium as both teams headed down to the stage to meet the headmaster.

"What gives Headmaster?" Jaune asked.

"I just wanted to inform the both of you…ahem…" He cleared his throat roughly, "I wanted to inform the both of your teams that the sanctions against both your teams are lifted," their eyes lit up, "You're now free to visit Vale during your free time once again." He nodded.

"Yes!" Yang pumped her fist, "Finally! Woohoo!" She cheered and stretched her arms out, "Tell you what gang! Let's all head down to Vale! I know this great place where we can kick back, relax and hammer ourselves _dead drunk_! Whaddya say people?" She threw her arms out with a wide grin.

" _I do caution restraint_ Ms. Xiao Long," Ozpin smirked, "We wouldn't want your team to end up in another…hmm…altercation now would we?"

"Nope." Ruby shook her head.

"Definitely not." Blake added.

"You can count on us sir," Weiss nodded vigourously.

"Very good." He nodded sagely before turning his attention to Jaune, "One last thing, Mr. Arc I'll need you to follow me to my office, there is a minor matter that requires your attention if you would."

"Wow headmaster you must really like Jaune a lot," Nora deadpanned, "You're always asking to meet him in person."

Everyone went silent at that.

" _Untrue_ Ms. Valkyrie," Ozpin rounded on her, "Professor Goodwitch is often with the both of us."

"Blake are you alright?" Yang leaned in close to her partner, Blake's face had gone beet red and she was squirming uncomfortably, the ninja cat Faunus nodded rapidly and swallowed hard.

"Y-yea-h, I'm fine." Blake waved it _very_ unconvincingly waved it off.

"Well then if there's nothing else you're all dismissed…Mr. Arc please follow me." He walked away.

"I'll catch up with you guys back at the dorm..." Jaune turned to follow but then spun on a heel and turned back, "Oh and Yang? Don't leave without me."

"You got it." Yang gave a thumbs up as Jaune followed the headmaster away and disappeared around a corner.

Without anything else to do, the seven of them left the auditorium and began heading back to their dorms.

"Hey Blake are you really ok?" Yang prodded her partner, Blake's face was still completely red and she almost seemed to have steam coming out of her ears, "What's the problem? Are you sick?" Yang suddenly held her hand to Blake forehead, "Wow you're hot! Let's get you to the doctor!" She began tugging on Blake who pulled her arm back.

"It's fine Yang! I'm just a little...uhm…I'm not…I'm not sick…or anything." Blake slowly forced out, "It's just…I erm…" She raised and lowered her arms uncertainly, "You know…what Nora said…"

"Huh? What'd I say?" Nora tilted her head questioningly.

"Well…she…" Blake went a little redder at the thought once again entering her mind, "You know what? Never mind, forget everything I said, let's go back to our dorms." And just like that she begn walking away as quickly as possible while the rest looked at her with strange expressions.

"What's gotten into her?" Weiss raised an eyebrow at the quickly departing Blake.

Yang stifled a laugh, "I have an idea, but I think I'll let you guys figure it out for yourselves." She smirked as she quickly ran after her partner.

"…What'd I say?" Nora still looked utterly confused.

 _ **Headmaster Ozpin's office,**_

"So…" Jaune began slowly as he entered the office behind Ozpin, "What's the issue sir?"

"Just a moment your highness," It was then that Jaune noticed that Professor Goodwitch was fiddling with some of the controls, "Thank you for setting it up Glynda."

"Almost got it…" Glynda muttered to no one in particular, "And…there we go." She tapped one button and a screen popped up. It showed one of the corridors in the Beacon student dorms, there were a few students walking through it.

"Uh…ok…?" Jaune was not quite sure what to make of it.

"Hang on…" The video began rewinding apparently, showing various images and scenes going backwards quickly.

"So…what's the problem?

"Yes well…" Ozpin adjusted his glasses, "We were much hoping that you could explain this to us." He proceeded to turn the terminal in Jaune's direction. Jaune leaned forward and watched carefully, on the screen was…him? Exiting his dorm and walking through what appeared to be Beacon's halls in the dead of the night according to the timestamp.

"Is that…me?" Jaune looked between the headmaster and Professor Goodwitch for an explanation.

"Continue watching your highness." Ozpin merely said.

He did, he nearly jumped out of his skin as he watched himself on the screen as the camera view changed now to show him walking head-on, the Jaune on camera had an utterly unnerving, glassy, unblinking expression on his face, he walked as though completely unaware of his own surroundings, his movements were jittery, as though he were a puppet. He entered the locker room and went straight to his own locker, Jaune's breath caught in his throat as he watched himself punch in the code and retrieve Crocea Mors from it, with the same expression and movements he proceeded to walk all the way back to his dorm.

Ozpin turned the terminal back to himself, Jaune remained completely still as his eyes darted back and forth.

"I…I don't…" He tried desperately to pull himself together, "That morning I…"

"Yes? What happened in the morning Mr. Arc?" Professor Goodwitch narrowed her eyes.

"I woke up with the sword in bed, I don't remember how it got there I just…" His mouth opened and closed but no sound came out.

"Hmm," Ozpin sipped from his cup of coffee, "It's been a while since this was a problem…" He leaned forward and supported his chin on his elbows, "What did you _dream_ that night Mr. Arc?"

"…I…I saw…" Jaune closed his eyes as the image of the woman wearing plate armor came flooding back to him, "A woman, she had brown hair tied in a bun, she wore armor with…" Jaune opened his eyes in shock.

"Yes? Do continue Mr. Arc."

"The armor had my family's emblem on it." Jaune said, "She called my name, tried to attack me and then…"

"And then…?"

"And then I woke up."

"Very interesting," Ozpin leaned back and folded his arms, "I've never heard of a semblance interacting with its owner like this, much less…" He stroked his chin, "Unless…"

"Headmaster?"

Ozpin looked thoughtful for a moment before he focused back on Jaune, "Nothing your highness, I just had a minor thought that's all, perhaps you could go down to the Medical Office and ask for sleeping pills so that you don't sleepwalk around Beacon in the future." He smiled nonchalantly.

Both Glynda and Jaune gaped at him.

"Headmaster…" Glynda began slowly.

"So you think this is just…sleepwalking?" Jaune shifted uncomfortably, "It's never happened be-"

"Well you never know what can happen your highness." Ozpin interjected.

"What did you do with your weapon your highness?" Glynda asked.

"I…I put it back in my locker after…after the…the breach…" Jaune forced out slowly, still not entirely understanding what was happening, "And…actually this morning I…I had another dream."

" _Interesting_ …" Ozpin stroked his chin, "It _has_ been a while, since you stopped approaching me I assumed that it was no longer an issue, so then tell me your highness…" He leaned forward, adjusting his chair as he did and placed his arms on the table, "What did you dream your highness?"

Jaune went tense, raising one hand to rub his forehead as he recalled the incredible vividness, "I saw…the death of my ancestor…no that's not right…" He forced out slowly as he ground his teeth, both professors listening intently, "It was more like…I was there as him, feeling the…the final blow of the Grimm, I even woke up screaming…it was just _so real_."

"…Does your team know about this?" Ozpin asked.

"Only Pyrrha does,"

"Hmm…" Ozpn stroked his chin for a moment before standing up, "I can safely tell you your highness that I've never really encountered a semblance of this type before… sleepwalking… visions of death… I think I can try to find out more on my own, until then what happens between your team is at your own discretion."

"What do you mean what happens between my team?" Jaune asked cautiously.

"I mean they seem to be getting rather suspicious, perhaps it's time you told them the truth, you've been holding out for a rather long time now haven't you?"

"Since the start of Beacon." Jaune sighed and shook his head solemnly, "Ugh, this wouldn't even be a problem if that stupid incident at the docks didn't happen…" He grumbled as he ran one hand through his hair.

"I should point out at this point that that problem was partly _your_ fault your highness." Glynda sternly remarked.

"Yeah I know…I wasn't thinking right at that point in time."

"In any case, if there is nothing else then you may take your leave your highness, if you need I can alert the medical office that I'm sending you down."

"…No need, maybe this will just be a one-off thing." Jaune shook his head slowly, that caused the other two to raise eyebrows.

"Are you sure about this your highness? I'll leave it up to you, but I strongly advise against simply brushing this off like that." Glynda chastised him while frowning.

"Yeah I'm sure," Jaune managed a half-convincing smile, "I can take care of myself." Both Ozpin and Glynda exchanged worried looks but Ozpin merely nodded.

"If you feel so your highness, you may go now." And with that said, Jaune bid the other two goodbye and exited the office, heading back down the lift as Ozpin let out a great sigh and rubbed his own forehead in a stressed manner, "This is quite the development." He grunted as he got up and went to the kettle, at times like these it certainly helped to have more coffee on standby.

"What do you think it is? I'm guessing you don't quite buy that it's just sleepwalking, or that it's his semblance is it?" Glynda shot him a knowing look, Ozpin remained silent for a while as he poured out the coffee, "Well?" She pressed him.

"Well…" Ozpin took a long drink and leaned back against the table, holding the cup up to his chin, "I have a theory, but I told his highness otherwise because I didn't want to disturb him too much with my hunch…"

"And…?"

"I think it's something else _entirely_ that's been afflicting him…" He sipped from his cup, "I would rather not jump to conclusions but…"

"Yes?"

"I have this strange feeling that his highness's sword might have something to do with this." The headmaster remained completely impassive as he said this.

"Wha…? You mean Crocea Mors? The Arc family heirloom?" Glynda was astonished but also rather curious, "But how on Remnant did you come to that conclusion?" She pressed, wondering what the headmaster was up to.

"It's dimensions have changed haven't they?" Ozpin looked at her out of the corner of his eye as Glynda tried to search her memory, she vaguely recalled bringing it up once a long time ago with the prince in the aftermath of one of her training sessions where he had torn another student's spear-gun in two after a particularly harsh blow, "We only speculated months ago that it was the prince's semblance, and not that it might be due to other causes."

"But what does the sword have anything to do with this?"

"Who knows? Like you said the sword is his families heirloom, we know it was found by his ancestor only proves that it is in fact, possibly older even compared to his family." Ozpin turned and placed his coffee cup on the table, walking to the window behind him with his hands clasped behind his back, "If we're to find out more about this, we may need to go to his family, in the very least it might be prudent to warn them."

"Hmm," Glynda pursed her lips and joined him at the window, "I have my doubts though, a weapon that can influence its wielder? Who on Remnant has ever heard of such a thing?" She almost scoffed.

"I should note that even I don't know everything Glynda, I could even be wrong on this, it wouldn't be the first mistake I ever made."

* * *

 _ **Back at the dorms,**_

Jaune collected water in his hand from the sink before splashing his face with it, he gripped both sides of the sink and bent low over it, breathing slowly.

 _I'm here because I needed a place to hide out, the rest of my family has scattered to do their own thing, so what the hell am I even doing here? Why on Remnant does all of this have to be happening now? It was just supposed to be four years before I head back to Armorica and now…_ He looked up and at his own face, looking deep into his own eyes.

"Dammit, get your shit together…" He scolded the reflection in front of him, half-expecting it to start talking back to him in his state.

It did nothing of that sort.

The prince-in-hiding sighed and grabbed a paper towel, wiping his face off before exiting the public toilet. Despite all the problems he was facing at the moment, Jaune shook it off and did his best to present himself as unflappable as he normally was, straightening his face out and clearing his throat as he walked down the hallway towards his dormitory so as to ensure that the rest of his team and the others remained perfectly unaware as to whatever might have been going on.

 _I think I need a drink, and with that in mind, I really ought to keep my word and check up on that nightclub, hopefully the others will like the idea too._ He rapped his knuckles on the door before opening it.

"I'm back," He spoke and raised eyebrows to find Team RWBY in the dorm with the rest of his team, "Whoa…is there some sort of inter-team meeting here?" He asked as he slowly stepped over and across Team RWBY sitting on the floor to get to his desk.

"Yeah, I was suggesting that since we have the whole day off to ourselves, we could all go and get ourselves hammered at this little club I know!" A wide grin was spread from cheek to cheek on Yang's face, "It's the same one that you were in…" Then she held up a finger as the grin changed into a smirk, "Plus _I_ have the excuse of getting in there now since _you_ have to check in on them right?"

"Yang~" Ruby droned out with a bit of a look, "Last time you got banned when you thrashed the place, don't get Jaune involved please? I don't want to have to attend another hearing." A rather agitated look settled on her face.

"I won't ok? Look…" Yang stretched her arms out in front of her, "I've made up ok? I _won't_ cause any trouble alright?"

"Wait a minute…" Weiss eyed her, "Are you telling me that that's the same club that the councilors spoke off that time?" She looked completely flabbergasted.

"Well yes…"

" _Oh boy_ ," Blake smirked, "I can't imagine how the reunion is going to go."

"Alright look that's not the point!" Yang insisted with a pleading look, "Let's all just go out and have fun alright? It's been a while since _any_ of us has been out and I don't wager that any of you would like to stay cooped up in here for the next two days, right?" She stood up and looked around the room to various ambivalent and nonchalant looks.

"I won't mind I guess." Jaune spoke up out of the blue, "It's been a while since I've had a proper drink…" He stroked his chin absentmindedly.

"Oh right," Ren's eyes lit up, "You did say something like that during summer break."

"Jaune…you…drink?" Pyrrha looked stunned and unsure of what to make of it.

"Never excessively, I certainly haven't ever been drunk." He explained dismissively.

"I wonder what a drunken Jaune-y looks like…?" Nora piped up, her sudden remark drawing the entire room's attention, "What?" She shrugged, "It was just a thought."

"Ok then! It's settled!" Yang pumped her fist, "I know the club opens at 7pm on the dot, last bullhead flight from Vale into Beacon is at 11pm, so that will give at least a nifty 3 hours to blow our brains out onto the floor…! Except of course for my lil' sis here." She gave Ruby a pat on the head as she said that.

"Yang! I'm old enough to take care of myself!" Ruby grumbled and pushed the hand away.

"Aw that's cute sis, but see you're only fifteen while the rest of us are _seventeen_ and I don't want you picking up any bad habits." The smile on Yang's face disappeared and she folded her arms in apparent finalization.

"So you're just gonna leave me here while all of you go out?" The reaper was incredulous as she jumped to her feet, "No, I'm putting my foot down as the team leader, you're not leaving me here and _that's_ final." And with that she completely overrode her elder sister, shooting her a look that said, 'make me, I dare you.'

"…Damn," Yang grunted and scratched her head, "Ok then you can go…but only soda and/or milk for you, we clear?"

"…Ok." Ruby grumbled a little.

"Perfect!" Yang nodded vigorously before tapping one finger to her chin, "Oh!" She smacked one fist into her palm, "Let's grab Sun and the others! We're gonna have a whale of a time!"

* * *

 _ **Elsewhere in Vale,**_

Gravelyn growled in annoyance as the person he was trying to call was apparently taking her own damn sweet time to pick up the line. He tapped his foot impatiently as he looked out of the window of his apartment in Vale, the night was still young and Remnant's shattered moon hung high in the sky, casting an eerie glow down onto the city below. During the day thin plumes of smoke could have been seen rising into the sky from where the breach had occurred, now they had all but completely dissipated, replaced instead by a light rain that gently beat down onto the window.

Finally, a click announced that a connection had been made.

And before Gravelyn could even speak, his mistress was already speaking, "Yes I'm quite aware that you _failed_ thank you very much." There was a strong element of mirth in her voice, "The fact that I'm watching a very much _not_ -burning Vale on the television was news enough to me."

"The Atlesian Military turned out to be far stronger than we anticipated, on top of it seems Beacon was not quite as empty as we thought it would be as well." Gravelyn merely explained flatly.

"Well never mind that then, you weren't caught? They still suspect nothing?"

"Nope, infiltrating and sabotaging their comms proved to be difficult, but I got in and got out and no one saw me, at most they'll think that one of the 'Queen's' pawns did it." Gravelyn laughed at the last part.

"Mmhmm, very funny Mr. Wells. How is our dear prince doing?"

"He got shot down at the beginning but he's fine, I checked up on him just now."

"I see, anything else to report?"

"Yes actually," Gravelyn sat up straight, "I was just thinking, perhaps we should be pursuing this from a different angle."

"Hmm, _perhaps_ , what do you have in mind?"

"I recall that Princess Jeanne might be in Vale later this year for the Vytal Festival correct? Now if memory serves me right…"

* * *

 **Now I know that I said that I was going to try and cover Ruby's reaction to the breach last chapter and I that did not happen, that's because it happens in tandem with another scene that I ended up rushing and decided that instead of dumping in a half-assed scene I would push it over to the next chapter instead of forcing it to finish.**

 **Also we're finally back on track with the overarching subplot involving the story of Jaune and his sword! I admit that I mostly did not plan for most of V2, as you can see the beginning is mostly just filler material before it hit the part where things actually happen.**

 **I have V2.5 KINDA planned out, but its V3 and beyond that will be a problem, since that is where all the little changes across the volumes form together to basically throw the story completely out of canon and into my own personal AU, the problem is that there are a few ways for me to do it and I haven't yet settled on a specific way. Once V2.5 is complete I'll probably take a long break to try and properly plan out before I continue with the story.**

 **But that's really all, enjoy this one omake that I couldn't resist making, in light of Winter and Annie's interactions with one another.**

* * *

 **15-hit critical combo: Elder sisters edition**

Winter entered her room with a groan, the whole day and night had proven quite exhausting even for a well-trained and professional soldier like her, night was now drawing down upon the kingdom, marking the end of the day.

She shucked off her combat fatigues which stank and tossed them to one side, stepping into the shower and letting the cool water run over her, washing out all of the dirt and grime and muck of the previous day's events. She decided to take her time for just this moment as a reward for her own work, dedicating a whole half hour to scrubbing herself clean before stepping out and wrapping a towel around herself, she opened the door and exited the shower cool and fresh, once she had changed up she headed down to her office, opening the door and hitting the light switch to see…

"Hey Winnie," Annie droned out.

"Gah!" The Specialist nearly jumped out of her skin and drew her sword in anticipation, only to find the mercenary sitting in her armchair with her feet propped up on her desk nonchalantly flicking through some files.

Winter groaned and sheathed her blade, "I thought you were getting out of here? What're you-hey!" Winter's face went red with anger, " _Put that down! That's classified_!" She stormed over and made to snatch the file out of Annie's hands, the mercenary pushed off the table with her feet just out of Winter's reach.

"Just a moment, I'm at the part where-" Annie did not get to finish her sentence as Winter's sword came right through the file, ending just in front of the former's nose.

" _I said_ ," Winter dropped her voice to a dangerous tone, " _That's classified_." She pulled the file away easily; the sword had only gone through the binder so it was still fine she gave it a quick flick to make sure it was all in place.

"Geez Winnie, it's only the allocated budget, no need to get so uptight about it." It was a statement made in clear mockery and Winter made sure to give the mercenary her best –or rather, worst- glare possible, "Not like it's gonna fetch a high-price on the market or anything." Annie got up from her set and stretched.

"Sure, I'll believe that when you explain what you're doing here." Winter rolled her eyes as she placed the file onto a cabinet behind her, "I thought you-" She turned to find that Annie was right behind her, their noses were almost touching, "What're you-" And before Winter could react, Annie did the most unexpected thing possible.

She leaned forward and captured Winter's lips with her own.

Winter had no time to think of a countermeasure or form of resistance, all she felt was Annie's tongue sliding into her mouth as the mercenary shoved her up against a wall and arms wrapping around her back, pressing her whole body into Winter. The latter shut her eyes as the sensation completely flooded her brain and melted it in an instant, ceasing all hope of organized resistance as she pushed weakly against the mercenary's grip. Almost in response to that, Annie began running her hands over the Specialist's well-toned and curvy figure, groping and squeezing her endowments with vigor, Winter moaned and unconsciously hiked up one leg against Annie's waist as the mercenary pressed her attack, her tongue flicking back and forth, curling and dragging itself through Winter's mouth.

 _Once,_ Annie coiled her tongue with Winter's,

 _Twice,_ dipping into the Specialist's cheek,

 _Thrice,_ one round around her lower jaw,

...

 _Fifteen,_ it could have been hours or it could have been seconds, but when Annie finally broke off, Winter barely had the ability to form a conscious thought in her dazed mind, a thin trail of saliva still connected their mouths.

"Wh…wha…wh….you…you…A-a…nnie…?" She stuttered mindlessly as her head swayed gently from side to side. Annie pressed one finger to Winter's lips and then tilted her head up, gazing at Winter from behind her nose.

"From now on, you will address me only as _'your highness'_ , understood?" She whispered in a low voice, in her present state, Winter could only nod weakly as she trembled, " _Très bien Mademoiselle Winter_ , now shall we continue?" Annie's voice had completely shifted, the normally rough and sharp style giving way to a smoother, more eloquent tone that seemed more reminiscent of a person of noble-upbringing.

"Ho-ah!" Winter gasped loudly when Annie pressed her lips against hers again, this time it was not as wild, it was more controlled, more passionate, and now Winter was starting to feel incredibly hot and needy, a pressure was building in her loins as Annie deftly rubbed her leg against it. The Specialist moaned into her make out session, she had never kissed another person like this before, certainly not another man, and most definitely not another _woman_ , Annie broke the kiss, leaving Winter dazed as she lowered her head and…

"Hah!" Winter gasped out as she felt Annie's teeth on her neck, "Y-y-your h-h-highness!" She stuttered out as her arms went around Annie's neck, stopping as her eyes rolled into the back of her head, Annie's hand went down to Winter's rump, eliciting more sharp gasps, "T-this is…this is inappropriate!" She tried again; Annie raised her head with a dark look on her face.

" _Votre Altesse Royale_ , _I'll_ decide what's appropriate and what's _not_." She growled beneath her breath.

There was not anything Winter could do as Annie proceeded to sweep the former off her feet and into a bridal carry, heading back upstairs to her bedroom. Her mind still swirling, the specialist could only hold onto the mercenary princess as she was carried right up to her bed and unceremoniously thrown on top of it, Annie leapt onto her, straddling Winter's thighs and moving her hands to Winter's shirt, beginning to unbutton it slowly.

"W-w-wai-ah! Y-your highness!" Winter cried out, trying to assert herself futilely, grabbing at Annie's hands, Annie forcefully tore them away and grabbed Winter's arms, locking them above Winter's head as she leaned in close.

" _Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas_?" She asked in a low voice, "Are you not enjoying this? Come now _Winter_ , you _know_ you want this." Annie lowered her body so it was pressing against Winter again, "Or would you prefer I were a man?"

"Y-ye-e-es! I-I mean n-no! I-I-I mean…" Winter was stuttering again, "W-wh-why~?" She whined as Annie started groping her again, sliding her body up and down, Winter squirmed desperately, rubbing her thighs together, she felt so hot that she thought she would go insane.

"Why? Hmm…" Annie stuck her tongue out and flicked it by Winter's ear, causing another sharp gasp, "Well let's just say even _I_ have my own needs to fulfill, but I'm not the type to run around messily sampling everything I can get my hands on."

"B-b-but…m-me?" Winter tried with wide eyes, "Ah!" Annie touched something rather sensitive.

"Well you're really the only person I know, I don't mind for men _or_ women," Annie explained slowly as she nuzzled Winter, "Mmhmm, you _smell_ nice, _just_ the way I _like_ it." She grinned widely as she slowly dragged her words out, "Now where were we? Ah…" She began unbuttoning Winter's shirt again, this time without any resistance as Winter lay back limply, her head still swimming, unable to properly comprehend what was happening to her.

"I'll have you know my dear specialist…" Annie whispered huskily into Winter's ear as the latter's top came undone, sending a chill up her spine and making the Atlesian Specialist moan lewdly as the mercenary sucked on Winter's neck, her hands kneading and massaging Winter's bare skin and sending all sorts of pleasurable feelings up Winter's spine, "Arcs are _always_ the dominant partner in any relationship." She giggled childishly as she lifted her head, stuck her tongue out and licked Winter's ear seductively.

 ** _Next morning,_**

"Specialist! Are you there?" A loud knocking on her door caused Winter to open her eyes and sit up slowly.

"Holy crap…" She murmured to herself and rubbed her eyes tiredly, "What on Remnant…?" She looked straight ahead with bleary eyes and then looked down at herself, "What the…?" She was completely naked for some reason, which Winter thought was odd because she did not usually sleep in the nude, sometimes in her underwear but that was usually-

"Come back to bed Winter," A familiar voice sent a chill up her spine, she slowly turned her head to the side, dreading what she was going to find.

Right there was Annie Arc, the mercenary princess, she was lying on her belly just as naked as Winter was, her normally long blonde hair had been untied of its ponytail and hung about her shoulders, one arm reaching out to snake around Winter's waist from the front and try to pull her closer and she murmured, "It's way too early in the morning for-"

" _Why_ …" Winter bared her teeth, "are you…in…my…bed?"

"Huh?" Annie cracked open her eyes and peered at the Specialist, a vein throbbing in her forehead, "Well last night we-" Once again she did not have a chance to finish her sentence.

" _GET OUT OF MY BED_!" Winter screamed, grabbed the so-called princess with both hands and hurled her out of the bed, the mercenary landing on the floor with a loud crash on her butt.

"Ow! Hey what's the big idea?!" Annie sat up straight as Winter got out of bed and loomed over her with bared teeth, one hand clenched into a shaking fist with her chest rising and falling with deep breaths, the former rolled her eyes and folded her arms over her bare chest, "Oh _please,_ don't give me that look, for the record that was _totally_ consensual and you _totally_ enjoyed it." She rocked her head back to back, Annie was caught off guard when Winter suddenly lunged forward and slammed her onto her back, "Ok so I guess it's your turn to be on top now so-"

"You…" Annie was quite sure at that point that the Specialist was going to explode from the sheer amounts of anger and killing intent pouring off of her as she raised one hand, " _Damn mercenary_!" She snapped it back.

"What's going on in there?! Specialist Winter!" A crash from downstairs sounded.

Winter's fist stopped in midair and her eyes went wide as she realized what was going to happen, loud stomping could be heard coming up the steps, "Wait General! Don't come up here! I'm-!"

General James Ironwood charged up the steps to find himself confronted with a scene that sent his jaw to the floor. Sprawled all over the floor was a nude, shapely, blonde-haired woman with piercing blue eyes, and straddling aforementioned woman's waist was Specialist Winter Schnee, herself also completely nude.

"N-n-n-no! Sir I swear this is not what it looks like!" Winter shouted as her face went completely red and she threw her arms around herself, leaning over to try and hide her front, "She-"

" _It's alright_ Specialist," The General merely gave her a firm nod, "I trust you in the selection of your… _partners_ , just make sure you get your report done promptly." And with that the General spun on a heel and disappeared back down the stairs.

* * *

 **Oh wow, so…that was apparently a thing…**

 **Why do I think elder-sister-on-elder-sister shipping is so hot? I honestly don't know why…**

 **Something must be wrong with me, I probably should go and get my head checked out or something.**

 **…**

 **You know I don't care what anyone says, the moment Jaune's eldest sister gets revealed I'm shipping it (Assuming he gets an elder sister). Winter is way more deserving of a proper relationship and not some drunk. I'm not dissing anyone who ships Night's Watch/Qrowin, your ships are purely your own and that's fine, but I don't see that ship in particular for myself, if anyone wants to bring it up with me that's fine.**

 **I just don't see it.**

 **Also, everything really _does_ sound sexier if French, and spoken really low.**


	34. We could be heroes

**Procrastination is like a drug, it's so damn addictive, this could totally have gotten out in mid-ish January if I hadn't been so damn lazy. My aim so far is to finish this up until the beginning of V3, go on temporary hiatus to figure out how I want to write V3 (If i get there) and work on a few side-fics in the meantime.**

 **I don't personally think all that well of this chapter either since its still primarily filler.**

 **But please do enjoy!**

* * *

The moon was raised high in the night sky by the time the three teams were in sight of the nightclub, signs of the battle were still present all around them from the ruined buildings to a few dried blood splatters on the street, due to many of the streetlights having been damaged most of the roads were dark and were lit only by either moonlight or the light of the buildings lining them. Even so, they ignored all of this for the building in front of them which contrary to the rest of the surroundings, appeared mostly undamaged and was lit up like a Christmas tree, it even had a long queue.

"We're here gang!" Yang put her hands on her hips as she observed the sight from the front.

"Whoa, there are a lot of people there…" Nora's eyes were wide, the queue stretched out and just about rounded the corner going behind the building, loud music could be heard emanating even though the entrance was closed, the beat could be felt.

"Seems like we're not the only ones looking to blow off some steam," Sun folded his arms, "Well let's hop to it, it's been a while since I've cut loose too." He raised and stretched his arms, "How about it Blake?" He slyly winked at her.

"How about what?" She raised an eyebrow in response.

"I think it's a good opportunity to relax, and you should relax too you know? It's not good to be so uptight all the time." She rolled her eyes and sighed without saying anything in response.

"Yeah," And with that word Neptune slung one arm around Weiss's waist and pulled her closer, "How about it snow angel?" She giggled a little in response.

"Well let's not waste any more time, shall we?" He walked past the long queue straight up to one of the guards by the entrance with Yang right beside him, one of the guards visibly tensed when he saw Yang approaching them.

"Hey! You're not allowed here!" One tried to sound as firm as possible, Jaune could see from the way he was visibly shaking with a quivering lip that the man was clearly frightened, he eyed the brawler beside him who had a smirk on her face as they came to a stop right in front of him with only the expanding barrier situated in-between, before a confrontation could happen Jaune quickly began talking.

"Is Ms. Miltia there? Could you please tell her its Jaune Arc." He smiled as brightly as he could as he leaned into Yang to cut her off, nearly making her stumble as she shot him a strange look.

"Ms. Miltia? What business do you have with her?" The guard looked him over rather curiously as he waved at the others to carry on with their duties.

"I don't know if you know but…I was here during the breach actually and I wanted to check up and make sure everything was ok." Jaune explained with a simple shrug, his smile never once dropping from his face.

"Well you're a whole day late that's for sure," a hand tapped the guard's shoulder from behind and he spun around, "Get back to the others Jamie," She flicked her head to the side, "I'll take it from here."

The guard looked between her and Jaune and seemed to consider it for a moment, "…Alright, whatever you say."

"Good to see you again Jaune, when you didn't come back after the breach was over I wasn't sure for a moment if you'd made it out, not with that leg injury of yours." A cheeky smirk crossed her face as she held out one hand which Jaune took and shook firmly.

"Well…I _am_ a lot tougher than I look." Jaune smiled in return as he withdrew his hand and gestured for the rest of them to come up.

"Although I might have reconsidered if I'd known someone like _her_ was going to come around for this." She glared at Yang, "Trust me no one here has forgotten for even a moment _blondie_." She spat the last word out with glowing vehemence.

"Heh, well _I_ aim to please." Yang jerked her thumb towards herself and smirked.

"Well actually Ms. Miltia," Jaune quickly butted in, "I was wondering if I could take you up on your offer of a free round of drinks."

Miltia rolled her eyes and shook her head but that cheeky smirk crossed her face again, "Well…" She leaned forward a little suggestively, "I'm sure we can accommodate a young and dashing trainee like you and the rest of your team… _her_ on the other hand I'm not so sure about." She folded her arms, "Do you even know what she did the last few times she was here?"

Jaune went silent and looked at Yang out of the corner of his eye, he opened his mouth to say something but clearly dropped it when the brawler shot him a look that _dared_ him to ask about it.

"No, I'm sorry but I don't, but please just make an exception this once? Our teams are close friends of mine and they _were_ instrumental in the closing of the breach, so I _promise_ she won't get into trouble tonight." Jaune clapped his hands together and seemed to plead with Miltia.

She looked at him quizzically before sighing and seeming to deflate, "I guess I can't really refuse such an earnest offer can I? You and your friends are free to go on in, but I'm warning you," She took a step forward and was right in his face despite his taller height, "First thing that happens and you're all out." A firm declaration was made right then and there.

"Yes ma'am." Jaune swallowed a little tightly, "Ok gang, we're through!" He waved behind him.

The moment they entered the deafening music being played hit them hard and made both Blake and Sun cover their more sensitive ears. They surveyed the area, watching a throng of people on the dance floor with others sitting at the bar and many others mingling around tables and sharing drinks with each other, a loud shout was just barely heard over a beat and Jaune turned his head to watch two of the club workers hauling a very visibly inebriated man with –what Jaune _assumed_ to be- vomit on his shirt out the door by his arms.

Jaune felt a tap on his shoulder and found Yang looking at him "Listen, I'm going straight to the bar to get some drinks!" She shouted over the music, "You can get the others and go and find somewhere to sit!"

"They'll probably need to see me first before we get our free round of drinks so I'll probably have to follow you!" He replied before turning to the others, "Can you guys go ahead and find a place to sit?! I'll go get us our drinks!" Neptune gave him a thumbs up as Sun followed Yang and Jaune to the bar.

"Barkeep!" Yang hollered out loudly while waving wildly at the man behind the counter a short distance away, "I'll take one strawberry sunrise, one soda and ten of your best beers preferably ale!" He seemed to give her a funny look but nodded at went to work as the trio of blondes sat down at the bar with Yang in-between the two males to wait for their drinks, "Have either of you two ever been to a nightclub like this before?" She raised both her arms and wrapped them around both men's shoulders.

"Yeah, a couple of nice ones in Mistral," Sun nodded, "A remember this one time when Neptune…hang on," A wide smile crossed his face and he held up one finger, "I think I can wait until we're all together, then everyone can hear it for themselves."

"Aw, no spoilers?" Yang elbowed him.

"Nope, just that it involved Neptune."

"And how about you Jaune? Are there many clubs in Armorica?" Yang placed one elbow on the counter supporting her head and turned to face him fully, "I'll bet _everyone_ knows you over there." A sly grin communicated exactly what she meant by that.

 _Oh wouldn't you like to know about that…_ Jaune scoffed at her remark, "Not really, my family wouldn't approve in the least." He could just imagine the look on his uncle's face the moment the Crown Prince –assuming Jaune had been that sort of person- found out that his nephew was going to nightclubs. Behind Yang the prince could see Sun snickering in clear understanding of what he had meant.

"What…was your whole family a bunch of prudes or something? Didn't you just say that you drank?" Yang lifted an eyebrow at the contradiction.

"Huh, I guess learning to sip wine from a glass isn't really drinking is it…?" Jaune drummed his fingers on the counter while waiting and looked ahead of him at the bottles that lined the shelves behind the counter, adjusting himself as he did, Yang nudged him and he looked at her with a confused expression.

"That's not right," She deadpanned, "Tell you both what…" Yang looked between the two men, "When we have free time, I'm gonna take the both of you out, and we're gonna have a blondes night out, _strictly_ for natural blondes like us." A spin in her seat and she was leaning back against the counter, "Whaddya say? No one else I know really has any kind of enthusiasm for the nightlife."

"I'm game." Sun nodded fervently, Yang clicked her tongue and pointed at him before turning to Jaune.

Jaune pushed out his lower lip in quiet contemplation, on the one hand, this could mean a lot of trouble that he did not need, on the other hand, it was a chance to really experience the outside world, something he did not in general do being cooped up in either a large castle in Armorica or a mostly empty mansion in Frostriver. Besides, he would have one of his protectors plus Yang along, what could possibly-

 _Oh wait, Yang could happen of course,_ He looked at Yang out of the corner of his eye as she watched him expectantly, "I'll think about it, no promises."

"Aw…oh hey our drinks are here!" She smacked her palm against the countertop as the barkeeper came over bearing a large tray, he went over to one side and brought back another tray, and then a third one, completing the total order, "Thanks!" Yang winked at him, he seemed to roll his eyes and moved on to other customers, "Well help me here guys." They each took a tray and headed back out, doing their best to be as careful as possible so as not to spill their drinks as they dodged various patrons who were clearly smashed out of their gourds and others in various states.

They found the other teams sitting at one side far from the noise around a large, curved couch with a table in the middle, Team (J)NPR was sitting at one side, Team (S)SSN on the other with Team RWB(Y) right in the middle. While Weiss was clearly interacting well with Neptune and Nora was talking to both Ren and Pyrrha excitedly, the rest mostly just held their tongue as the trio approached and sat down the three trays.

"That's your soda," Yang passed Ruby a mug, "This is mine and _no one touches it at all under any circumstances_ ," She placed her strawberry sunrise at one side, "And the rest is just bog standard beer." She shifted into her seat beside Ruby as Sun made to sit beside Blake with Jaune in-between Ruby and Pyrrha, "Well then!" Yang cleared her throat abruptly as she seized her drink and held it up high, "I propose a toast! To being a bunch of awesome hunters who kickass, take names and save lives!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Jaune noticed Ruby flinching at the last part.

"Cheers!" She shouted and thrust her glass forward, the others picked up their own mugs and followed suit with their own cries both low and high, Team SSSN immediately tipped back their mugs and downed several gulps as did Jaune whereas everyone mostly just took small sips.

Pyrrha visibly shrank back from her mug and sat it down on the table as Nora stuck her tongue out, "Bleh." The hammer maiden grunted and pushed her mug over to her leader, "Here Jaune-y, this stuff is not my type, _way_ too bitter." She continued sticking her tongue out, this time in his direction.

Jaune pulled the mug away from his lips and exhaled sharply, wiping his mouth off the back of his hand, "That's cause you're not doing it right, all you are drinking is the foam not the liquid, you need to tip the mug all the way back, let the foam cover your upper lip and then drink _under_ the foam, that's how people get beer moustaches." He explained.

Nora tilted her head and stared at her mug contemplatively before she took it cautiously and tilted it further back than she did before, and lo and behold she started tipping it back further…and further…and…

"Hah!" She slammed the mug –now only half-full- down on the table and grinned widely with the foam on her upper lip, her features flushing brightly even in the dark light of the nightclub, "Not bad!"

"Nora…don't overdo it…" Ren prodded her ever so slightly, he had already had to deal with Nora on a sugar-high a number of times in his life, thankfully nothing of that sort had happened recently, but he was not about to wonder what sort of person Nora would become if she were drunk.

The thought actually made him shiver a little.

Meanwhile, Pyrrha was debating to herself what to do after seeing Nora down her drink so quickly and thirstily.

 _Maybe Jaune would like me more if I were a more mature person, but is drinking like that really a good way of showing it?_ She fidgeted a little before she sucked in a lungful and taking hold of her cup.

 _Let the foam cover your upper lip and drink under the foam? Sounds simple enough…_ And so she did exactly that and was surprised by the pleasantly cool liquid as she let it flow down her throat, a few gulps later and she sat the mug down, wiping her mouth on her own arm as she did.

She felt a nudge on her shoulder and turned to find Jaune smiling at her, "So how was it? Your first drink?"

"It was… it was nice, I think I enjoyed it." She returned the smile, and then daringly –or maybe it might have been the alcohol, one never knew in this sort of situation- she leaned to the side and rested her head on his shoulder. The champion could feel him go momentarily tense at the feeling of her on his shoulder, the prince-in-hiding gradually relaxed though, and reached around her back to pat her shoulder, he opened his mouth, it seemed like he wanted to say something but apparently decided against it as he closed it tight. Seeing that he was not apparently resisting, Pyrrha shuffled to be closer to him until their sides were touching, if he minded Jaune did not show it outwardly, and so Pyrrha settled into a comfortable position.

 _I know she has feelings for me but… does she need to be so forthright about it?_ Jaune let himself slump a little, even though she had confessed to him –in a roundabout sort of way- barely a few days ago, he had not had time to really think about that. Right after that she had finally found out that his little lie involving him sending her far off back to her own home country while he, Ren and Nora lounged around Beacon over the break. After that the breach had happened and then…

 _I'm thinking way too hard about this._ He shook his head, maybe the alcohol was getting to him? He was only three-quarters of the way through his mug though, there could not have been nearly that much alcohol inside those few gulps, beer was not nearly that alcoholic as far as he remembered, he inhaled sharply and took a glance around the table to see what everyone else was doing.

And only then did he realize that the attention was focused on him.

Everyone was looking at him with the champion leaning her head on his shoulder and clearly trying to snuggle into him. Yang actually broke out her scroll in front of Jaune and snapped a picture before the latter could even get a word in edgewise.

" _Well well well_ ," Yang chuckled as Jaune let out a sigh or resignation at the brawler's antics, he really did not want to have to deal with this now. Meanwhile Nora was grinning ear to ear as she watched the so-called 'couple', though knowing his leader better, Ren remained more impassive and took another gulp from his mug.

Team SSSN was nothing but grins all around, "You know I'll be frank, speaking as a Mistralian I'm a little jealous." Scarlet shot Jaune an awkward smile.

Jaune tried to think of something to say as Pyrrha continued relaxing against him and ignoring the rest of the world at large, but all he could come up with was…

"You're welcome." The prince-in-hiding deadpanned.

A series of chuckles and laughs broke out, most prominently from Yang who barked a rather high laugh as she kept her scroll and rested her chin in her hands, "I doubt there's a boy who wouldn't rather be in your position." She said.

And before Jaune could say anything more, something else was already happening.

"The hell is that _fucking animal_ doing here?" A rather young-ish looking bald male half-stumbled over to their table, in one hand he held a bottle of what was clearly some kind of liquor, he took a swig from it as he gestured wildly at Sun, clearly not quite in the right state of mind, he was still fairly coherent though.

Everyone was ready in an instant for the possibility of a fight. Yang merely stared at him for a bit before remarking, "Dude, could you go be drunk elsewhere please? We're just enjoying ourselves." She stabbed her thumb in another direction.

"You shut the fuck up blondie," Yang positively bristled at that comment, "You don't know jack shit about what those fucking animals have done to us." He turned his rather bloodshot gaze onto Yang, who visibly clenched her fists and began grinding her lower.

Before anyone else could offer an opinion, Jaune quickly interjected, "Look pal, I know you're drunk but if you haven't noticed, there's a dozen of us here…" He gestured around the table to the rather dark looking faces around him, "And there's only one of you, even if we _weren't_ hunter trainees that's some _very bad_ odds you're trying to surmount." Jaune tried his best to sound reasonable, "So why don't you just move along and we'll all forget this happened."

"You fuck the hell off kiddo," He almost literally spat in Jaune's direction, "You-" He stumbled, his legs crossed one over the other, and then he proceeded to trip over his own feet and fall over flat onto his face with a dull thud, the bottle shattering as it landed on the hard floor.

He was out cold.

Jaune stood up from his seat at the center of the couch to look over the table, "…Well that's that I guess." Jaune shrugged at the unconscious body on the ground and slowly sat back down.

"Very anticlimactic." Weiss deadpanned as the group returned to their drinks.

"Ok…now that that's taken care of…" Yang suddenly banged her fist on the table, "How would everyone like to go for some shots? I bet 50 lien I can drink any of you _lightweights_ under the table." Maybe the beer had loosened her up enough to suggest it, no one was quite sure, but she wore the single cockiest smirk anyone had ever seen her put on.

"Well I'm game." Sage stood up and dusted himself off, "We'll see who the light weight is."

"Perfect! Anyone else?"

"I…think I wouldn't mind…" Now it was Scarlet's turn.

"Aaanndd Scarlet makes three! How about the other two blondes here? C'mon you two, it's a challenge." Yang prodded them insistently.

"…I'm good." Jaune answered after a short pause and waved her off.

"Yeah…I think I'll pass too, I think the beer is fine, I don't feel like hammering my brains out tonight." Sun nodded in agreement.

"Aw." Yang pouted, "Well we'll see you in a few gang!" She grabbed both Sage and Scarlet and walked off with her arms around their shoulders.

"Don't forget!" Jaune called out to the trio walking away, "We need to get back in time to catch the last flight!" Yang merely answered by waving one of her arms in his direction.

* * *

 _ **A few hours later,**_

"Yang c'mon! We're going to miss our bullhead if you keep this up!" Blake chastised as Yang threw up again the small alleyway.

"Sage you big oaf! Can you at least _try_ to support yourself?" Sun grumbled as he struggled to hold onto his fellow dark-skinned teammate who was on the verge of toppling over and was repeatedly swaying back and forth.

"No Scarlet! Don't-!" Neptune cried out and was barely able to turn the other boy away from him before the latter threw up onto the pavement.

"Is this a good time to point out how glad I am that the only person on my team who _actually drinks_ is a responsible person?" Nora spoke up out of nowhere, "Cuz at this rate I'm just really glad we're not lugging you around while you're spewing puke and vomit in every direction." She smirked at Jaune who lifted his shoulders in a small shrug.

"Yang~!" Blake called again as the blonde coughed and spluttered out onto the floor below.

"At this rate, your new name is going to be _vomit girl_." Jaune deadpanned with a smirk on his face.

Yang raised one hand behind her head and flipped Jaune off, "…Fuck you-*HRK*" She heaved out again.

"Sis hurry up! We're really going to be late at this rate!" Even Ruby was getting increasingly jumpy as her eyes flicked back and forth between her sister and the time on her scroll that said it was 2121hrs and that meant they had just a little more time before the last bullhead took off for Beacon, which in turn would strand them in Vale, which then meant that they would need to find a hotel and spend the night there.

Well at least it was their off day, no need to worry about Professor Goodwitch making a fuss about things; at least they could hope for that much.

"Yeah I got it!" Yang growled at them, "Just… holy crap… just let me take a breather." She finally stood up straight and took a few deep breaths as she tried to set her head on straight, neither Sage nor Scarlet were doing too well either and continued stumbling about as their teammates tried to manhandle them, though at least they were holding their stomachs in better than the blonde brawler was.

"You alright Pyrrha?" Jaune bumped his partner's shoulder as she rubbed one of her eyes and yawned.

"Just a little tired Jaune." She smiled at him as she stretched her arms out, "Whoa!" She wobbled a little and seemed to fall… coincidentally right in Jaune's direction. Although caught off guard by her sudden "misstep" Jaune quickly managed to catch her fall and balance her against his body.

"Aha, or maybe not…" She grinned widely with narrowed eyes up at him, Jaune merely rolled his eyes and let out a sigh of resignation.

It took some time, but eventually they were able to make it to the very last flight out of Vale and back to Beacon, boarding it, Jaune realized that they were not the only students apparently out having time to themselves. Dozens of other students crowded the flight in various states; some looked as high as a kite, others looked dazed…was that Cardin? He was apparently making out quite heavily with some girl who Jaune vaguely recalled seeing somewhere around the Academy.

Jaune turned his head away from the sight and focused on his own rising nausea, he swallowed it back and tried to steady himself, the airsickness pill having dried up whatever might have come out of his mouth. His own team as well as SSSN and RWBY were all trying to keep their heads straight after the rather wild –at their own standards at least- night, Yang was feeling much better although she groaned whenever the aircraft bucked a little to one side or the other while as did Scarlet and Sage.

A little while later and the whole motley crew staggered out of the aircraft, they bid Team SSSN goodnight as the foursome split to go to their dorm while RWBY and JNPR headed back to their own dorms.

Jaune took this opportunity to talk to his fellow leader and unofficial protector as they lead the way, "Hey Ruby, are you alright?" He asked out of the blue as they walked slowly.

"Huh?" The reaper jumped at his sudden question and looked up at him, "Wha…what're you talking about?"

"You're even quieter than you normally are, I don't think you've said much since we got back after… the breach." For some reason it seemed like some sort of sore talking point that ought not to brought up by anyone, but Jaune figured that it was the most likely reason for the reaper's behavior.

"I…well…" She twiddled her thumbs and sucked in her lips, "You see…" She stuttered a little.

"Was it something you saw?" Jaune looked down at her with a worried look on his face, Ruby was of course the youngest amongst all of them, it was probably her first time seeing sheer misery of that magnitude all on her own. On the reaper's part, her eyes went wide on seeing him and she looked away in apparent embarrassment.

"It…it wasn't just that, I also-" She was interrupted when Pyrrha suddenly crashed into Jaune's back.

"P-Pyrrha?! What're you-" Jaune stumbled forward and turned to catch a very dreamy looking Pyrrha with a seductive smile painted on her face.

"Oh sorry Jaune," She quickly stood up and backed off a little while still smiling.

Jaune lifted an eyebrow but nodded in response, "It's fine, are you sure you're alright? Maybe you shouldn't have drunk that mug out so fast." He straightened her out slowly and pet her on the shoulder.

Behind him Ruby merely rolled her eyes at the sight.

"Yeah I'm fine Jaune, thank you." She was still smiling.

"Hey can we all get a move on please?" Weiss sounded out surprisingly, "Before Yang starts heaving all over the hallway?" She jerked her thumb behind her, Blake was grimacing as she held Yang up with one of the latter's arms draped over the former's shoulders.

"So Ruby…" Jaune began as they finally began to approach their rooms, "What were you going to say?"

"It's alright," She sighed, "I…I think I'll talk to you another time, goodnight Jaune." And with that, the two teams bid each other goodnight and disappeared into her room, Jaune exchanged a nod with both Weiss and Blake before turning and entering his own room.

In a well-practiced and rehearsed drill, the girls got to use the bathroom first as usual –with Pyrrha going in first- while Jaune sat at his desk to wait and Ren dropped onto the floor again to take a snooze while waiting for his turn while Nora dug out her pajamas.

 _Damn, I hope Ruby's ok,_ He bit his lower lip and gripped the edge of his desk, _Two years on and I'm still not really over it…_

"So Jaune-y," Nora started without even turning around, "are you ever going to be clear on your feelings for Pyrrha?" The question was so sudden that Jaune nearly fell out of his chair on hearing it.

"Uh…" He scrambled for an answer, the hammer maiden was still setting her pajamas out on the bed, looking up with a curious look on her face, "I already told her I didn't feel for her that way back at the dance." Jaune answered honestly as he crossed one leg over the other and leaned back in his chair with his head tilted up to face the ceiling, a small part of him not quite daring to face Nora.

"Uh huh, and what did Pyrrha say?" Nora's voice remained even and level.

"She said she'd continue trying to win me over." Jaune did not move.

He heard a great sigh and finally turned his head to find that Nora had finished setting out her nightclothes and was now sitting at the side of her bed with her arms folded across her chest, shaking her head in resignation, "Well hopefully you two sort something out, I don't want to go through the next four years watching you two dance like that, it can get infuriating you know?" Her eyebrows jumped once, "On the one hand I don't really want pointless drama in this team," She held out one hand, "On the other hand… yeah well I already said it." She shrugged and leaned back, slowly rocking back and forth.

There was little else to say on that point, the prince-in-hiding would rather not contemplate the day when all three would –probably inadvertently- find out that they had been sharing a room with royalty. With no small amount of luck that would remain a secret all the way until graduation and maybe even beyond that…

 _Ah who am I kidding, at some point…_

With nothing left to go on, the team fell silent and eventually turned in for the night after they were done taken turns in the shower.

* * *

 _ **Next morning,**_

"Oh god, I'm never going drinking again." Yang moaned as she clutched her head tightly. Yang had decided to take the day off from operating the food stall which meant that the team was back in the dining hall for breakfast

"Hey that's a good way to tell if someone's hungover." Jaune pointed out as Yang lifted one hand to flip him off again. He ignored the brawler and turned to his partner who clearly was not doing so well herself from the way her head was down on the table on her arms, "I guess you're really lightweight huh?" He rubbed her back comfortingly; Pyrrha turned her head to the side while squinting in the bright light.

She furrowed her brow, "I don't really remember what happened last night…" She rubbed her forehead and grimaced at the pain, "What happened last night Jaune? Did I…" She flushed a little, "I didn't… I didn't do anything silly did I?"

"You were a little tipsy, probably because it was your first time but don't worry," Jaune smiled and nudged her with his elbow, "You definitely weren't throwing up all over the place like Yang was." He looked at the person in question.

"Ugh." Was all he got from the brawler.

"Hmm," She hummed a non-response and turned her head back down, except for Nora, all the other team members were eating their own breakfast quietly.

"And then I smashed its head across the field like it was a golf ball! I even got a hole-in-one!" The hammer maiden explained excitedly, her companion Ren only nodded in acknowledgement with a small smile on his face.

In the meantime, Jaune fished out his scroll and started watching the news, there was plenty of live feed from multiple sources and stations continuing to cover the aftermath of the breach as well as relief and recovery efforts for the surrounding regions who had also been effected by the sudden upsurge of Grimm activity. Picking the station of his choice, he made sure to turn the volume down as it began rolling.

" _I assure the citizens of Vale that none of us will rest…until we have apprehended every single one of those who have been involved in the making of this tragedy, until we have made them pay for taking the lives of so many and for causing so much grief and harm to innocent men, women and children everywhere. And to whoever it is that was responsible for this I can assure you of one thing, we will definitely find you, and you will be brought to justice." The councilman said._

 _Fighting is slowly winding down as the Atlesian Military reports that the situation around the city of Vale is largely stabilizing although officials caution that it remains too early to say that the overall circumstances have normalized. Citizens are advised to remain in their homes and continue to await further updates on the situation as it develops._ Various scenes of soldiers were shown.

 _With peace largely restored to the city, questions are now being raised as to who was responsible for the breaching of the old tunnel leading to the now abandoned Mountain Glenn complex. It has now been confirmed that the primary perpetrator of this incident was in fact the notorious criminal and outlaw Roman Torchwick, while originally responsible for a recent spate of dust thefts all over the city, images released by the Atlesian Military indicate that he was apprehended in the immediate aftermath of the incident, officials claim that he was caught attempting to escape the scene by local Atlesian forces._

" _Roman Torchwick_ …" Jaune glared hatefully at the image on the screen showing a portrait of the criminal with a large, shit-eating smirk on his face.

"Did you say something Jaune?" Nora asked with her spoon still stuck in her mouth, her leader merely shot her a look and placed his scroll on the table in front all of them, turning up the volume as he did.

"Listen to that." He stated and folded his arms.

 _In addition to this, speculation has abounded that the Faunus extremist group the White Fang was also responsible for the attack as many wonder where a mere criminal could have gotten the resources to perform such a feat, the organization was at one point believed to have gone to ground by the Vale Police Department, the last major incident was a raid mounted to apparently steal a large quantity of dust from a train as it was making its way to a supply warehouse._

 _As the speculation builds, tensions have mounted in the wake of the tragedy, just barely hours after the Atlesian Military declared the closure of the breach, a spate of violent attacks was reported erupting around Vale much of which was directed at the city's Faunus minorities. Thus far the most major incident was a gang fight between two groups which left multiple wounded though non-fatally, many Faunus have reported other incidents including verbal and physical harassment as well as threats of violence. The Vale Police Department has yet to assert their position on the matter, though officials have stated that there is no evidence of any organized attempt at inciting violence against the Faunus community._

"I guess that one idiot back at the bar wasn't really the extent of it…" Weiss frowned and sighed.

Blake ground her teeth on hearing this and clenched her fist tightly, "It's the White Fang again, I _told_ you guys that they were planning _something_ after all, and now all of this…" She hissed through her teeth, "We should've done something about it!"

"Done what Blake?" Ruby countered, "We were already in enough trouble as is."

"We told the headmaster and General Ironwood about it and it still wasn't enough!" Blake insisted vehemently, "So why are so many people suffering and dying? Better than that, why wasn't something done about it?!"

"Whoa settle down Blake," Yang sat up straight even as her headache was still pulsing and beating through her head, "You don't know that, for all we know, they _did_ try something." The brawler tried to calm her irate partner down.

"Well whatever they tried, obviously the results speak for themselves don't they?" The ninja cat girl banged her fist on the table and clearly was not letting up, "Part of a city in ruins, and relations between humans and Faunus are at a new low thanks to them."

"Come on Blake you _know_ that's not true," Ruby spoke up again, "These are just isolated incidents of a few jerks, the whole equality movement isn't going to shut down just because of a few racist people." That seemed to have a calming effect and Blake slowly released her fist.

"Still though…"

"Relax Blake-y, it wasn't anyone's fault." Yang nodded, "It's like Jaune said, we did our part and that's enough, right Jaune?" She looked at the prince-in-hiding for an agreement.

Jaune was looking down with a dark look on his face, "I should've run that criminal through that night at the docks," Jaune growled, "maybe then none of this would've happened."

"It's not worth it Jaune," Now it was Pyrrha's turn as she sat up, "It's not worth becoming a murderer for."

"It's not worth becoming a murderer to save hundreds of innocents? Is that what you're saying?" Jaune narrowed his eyes.

"No!" Pyrrha started backtracking quickly with her hands up in front of her and shaking her head back and forth, "I didn't mean that! I-"

"I _know_ you didn't," Jaune stopped her, "But without him, maybe none of this would've happened."

"You can't say that for sure Jaune," Ren pointed out, "If Roman Torchwick was working with the White Fang, then the plan would likely have gone ahead anyway, and innocent people would still die."

Jaune looked contemplative for a moment, "I guess you're right…" He seemed to acknowledge the point.

 _In other news, much has recently been made of a group of hunter trainees from Beacon Academy._

Everyone's eyes lit up as videos of the two teams began playing on the screen.

 _Four of the trainees have been identified as the infamous Team RWBY, first surfacing in the aftermath of Beacon academy's annual initiation program; the team became notorious last week over their involvement in the controversial incident on highway 42. However they were recently spotted just the night after the breach at an aid station in the middle of Vale, apparently helping the Atlesian Army treat both civilian and military casualties._

"Huh, I guess those photos yesterday were just the start of it." Weiss remarked with a thin smile on her lips, "Maybe this way, we might actually have earned a small redemption."

"Let's not get our hopes up too high," Ruby replied, "It still doesn't really-"

"Teams RWBY and JNPR kindly report to the headmaster's office as soon as possible."

A collective groan went out from both teams, how many times already had they been called –whether collectively or individually- to the headmaster's office for one thing or the other?

Despite that though, they were able to pull themselves away from the table and drag themselves all the way up to the headmaster's office in their more-than-slightly sorry state of mind.

"Headmaster." Jaune greeted cordially as the rest of the group filed in, Blake barely caught Yang in time as the brawler let out another long groan and slumped forward.

"Very good morning to you all," Ozpin clasped his hands on the desk with a thin smile on his lips, "And an _especially_ good morning to you Ms. Xiao Long." He did not even try to hide the amusement in his voice at seeing the hungover Yang.

"Ugh." Yang responded.

Ozpin smirked, "First of all my earnest apologies for disturbing you on your day off, I didn't mean to but unfortunately for both me and you, events have caught up to us again, I assume to a certain extent that you've already seen the news?"

There was a bit of shifting and nodding here and there.

"Well then, I suppose I'll try to be brief…"

* * *

 _ **The morning after the breach,**_

 _ **Ozpin's office,**_

"You can't possibly be serious…" Ozpin could only gape at councilwoman Nyla on the screen in his office, she was just as demur and as deadpan as she usually was, sitting upright in her chair with her hands clasped on the desk in front of her, and yet somehow that only made her words seem that much more sharp whenever she spoke, and in this case, a discussion involving the breach and its aftermath.

Specifically, what the council wanted to do with Team RWBY.

"They're just children who only came out of the fire of the breach a day ago, I was planning on giving every single one of them leave for a few days in order to rest in the aftermath of the sheer chaos and turmoil, but now I hear you want them to act as…as symbols?" He was aghast, of all the things the council could do; this was surely taking the cake.

"What're you complaining so much about?" Nyla slowly lifted one eyebrow, "You know as much as I do the value of such information in these troubled times that we live in, the people are looking for a hero, _a savior_ that they can rely on to see them through the great darkness." The headmaster wondered if she had inserted such poetic eloquence just to mock him for some reason.

"They need time to unwind, not have their schedule filled with silly things like interviews or award ceremonies." Ozpin countered her, "They're only human, at least give them some time."

"As much as I'd like to agree with you, there may just be a rather distinct lack of it at the moment." Nyla cleared her throat, "Before this day ends the populace will already be crying out for answers, Grimm activity remains high and is projected to surge again should we not find a way to divert the citizens attention quickly, and the Atlesian Army is already stretched thin dealing with the fighting all around the city." She explained tersely, "I wouldn't have conveyed this to you if I felt there might have been a better alternative."

"Why not let the Atlesian Army take the credit?" There was a degree of spitefulness in Ozpin's voice that he could not hold back, "They're the ones doing all the fighting."

The pursing of Nyla's lips immediately led Ozpin to realize that he had just sent the conversation down an uncomfortable route for her, and that only made him want to pry all the more as he waited for her to speak again, "They won't be," She shrugged, "The proposal was for both hunters and soldiers to be jointly acknowledged as heroes, not for one side to take precedence over the other, and also…" She closed her mouth and ground her lower jaw for a moment.

"And…?" Ozpin held his breath.

"Oh come off it Ozpin!" Nyla rolled her eyes, "You know how it is," She waved one arm and shook her head, "the Atlesian Military already provides for our defense by an agreement, I don't personally care all that much, but much of the council feels that if they were given all the credit, that would expand their political overreach by canceling out the controversy caused by the reveal of the theft of their robots. In addition to that there is also the reveal of the involvement of Roman Torchwick and the White Fang." She clicked her tongue.

Now Ozpin was quite sure that the council remained blissfully unaware of the fact that –at least according to General Ironwood- all of the stolen prototypes were destroyed. How could they after all? If they were to know it would only mean that they would in turn know that the Atlas was carrying out secret military operations in Vale territory, which would in turn be a very bad thing for Atlas, after all the White Fang were technically an "internal" affair as far most of the kingdom was concerned. Having a foreign military in charge of the city's defense could be worrisome enough for some; learning that they were also conducting operations in secret could tip it over into something rather nasty.

For sure it was nothing anyone wanted.

"So the council wants to turn the trainee teams into more propaganda? That's it?"

"Yes." There was no more blunt a word than that.

Ozpin remained silent, there was little he could at this point to shield the students, while he turned this issue over in his head, Nyla continued talking.

"Just think of it this way, a team of huntress trainees, gone rogue in a misguided attempt to take down a terrorist organization, now seeking to redeem themselves through making a real effort to protect the city and its citizens." She said quaintly, "It's the perfect pick-me-up if you will, nothing quite more exciting and uplifting than a story of redemption and regaining of one's honor…oh and there's also this." She tapped her screen and brought up several pictures for Ozpin to see.

There was one showing Yang grinning as she spooned out bowls of soup.

Another one showing Ren running with a bag.

One more showing Weiss singing.

The last showed Blake administering aid to a wounded soldier.

"These images were just taken last night, they will probably… not that's not quite correct…they _will_ be published likely within the next few days, a feature showcasing the triumph of humanity in hard times." Nyla let the pictures stay where they were, "There won't be any stopping of it Ozpin, this is for the public consumption, we _need something_ like this right now, we can't risk another surge of Grimm activity on our borders, not now, not this close to the Vytal Festival."

 _First it was the initiation battle with a Manticore, then it was the highway incident, and then finally this. Those two teams certainly have a knack for getting involved in excitement._ It was nicest way in Ozpin's head to say that both teams were magnets for trouble and intrigue, still though, he could see them appreciating to some extent the recognition they would be getting, it would be welcome relief for them after the highway incident, and like Nyla said might even warm the city to them.

 _Thank goodness his highness was not highlighted in any of these, the House of Vale might not be quite so happy if they found out he was getting into the spotlight again when he was supposed to be keeping his head low._ He nearly chuckled at the thought; it was amusing in a distant sort of way.

"What about the other teams though? Surely the council doesn't intend to play favorites with all of the first response teams who were involved in the breach?" Ozpin asked, "All of them contributed meaningfully, even if they weren't the ones who were able to knock down a goliath." Nyla let out a long sigh and leaned back into her chair, Ozpin pressed on, "I don't want any silly rumors or petty rivalries coming out of this, if we're going to do something like this I want _all_ of the students to be commended, and if that's not possible then at least commend the first response teams, they _all_ deserve it among the others."

"I'll…yes you do have a point," Nyla seemed to give in, "The rest may not be as approving, its far easier to highlight the contributions of a few than to make a story about the whole…" She gently rested her head on one hand propped up on her desk.

"It'll be a grand story," The headmaster did consider his persuasive abilities a notch above most, "Trainee hunters save thousands, assisting in the relief efforts in the aftermath of the crisis." He laid down the potential headline for her, "It'll be the talk of the whole city in the run up to the Vytal Festival."

Nyla actually seemed to laugh at that, "Maybe, maybe not, we'll see for now, so do I have your commitment to this." And just like that the humor evaporated.

Ozpin furrowed his brows, "You're going to move on and do it anyway even if I didn't support you right?" He ground his teeth, "Fine, give me some time to tell them and gauge their reactions at least, you don't want a bunch of grumpy kids going up to a podium or anything do you?"

"Despite what you may think, I doubt that we'll go so far as to have an actual ceremony planned and performed, more important to the council and to the people will be the symbolism. If it takes a whole ceremony perhaps such a thing may go through although…nearly everyone has their hands full as of late…so probably not." A quick straightening of her glasses and she went back to it, "Regardless, have you spoken with General Ironwood recently?"

"Not yet, he's probably still busy at the Atlesian Military Base, I can't imagine the pile of work that he has to deal with at the moment."

Nyla hummed a non-response and nodded sagely, "Well in any case we –that is the council- will be trying to get in touch with him to see if we can coordinate some kind of celebratory service for both the trainees as well as the soldiers that fought that day, I suppose they all deserve that much."

"Well thank you very much in that case," Ozpin was not able to stop just a little bit of snide bitterness from creeping out in his voice eve as he tried to relax, "I suppose all that's left for me to do would be to inform the select students yes?"

If Nyla picked up on his tone of voice, she did not show it, "Well then that's all there is left for you to do, I'll inform you as events develop further, until then Ozpin."

Remembering to conspicuously leave out the more deplorable parts of the conversation between him and the councilor, Ozpin fell silent as he let his explanation of the event sink in slowly into the minds of the group of teenagers standing before him. Jaune looked rather contemplative while Ren and Nora wore mostly neutral expressions, Pyrrha on the other hand seemed to have a rather forced smile on her face. Ruby was tilting her head in confusion while Weiss and Blake were exchanging shrugs and glances back and forth as though they were both egging the other on to say something about their current situation.

Thankfully, there happened to be just the person to break the awkward silence descending on them all.

* * *

"Wait wait wait wait wait wait waaaiittt a minute." Yang suddenly seemed quite sober and held up one finger while standing up straight, "You're telling us prof…that we are going to get some… _actual recognition_ for what we've done."

"In a matter of speaking… _yes,_ Ms. Xiao Long." A straight answer.

" _Hella-fucking yes_!" Yang suddenly threw both of her arms up into the air and gave a loud whoop of joy, pushing off from Blake and nearly making the latter fall as she pumped her fist up and down, "We're heroes gang!" She punched Jaune's shoulder, startling him and making him shoot a look at her.

"So what happens now headmaster?" Jaune turned back to Ozpin.

"Well first off, besides Ms. Xiao Long over there, any thoughts on this development?" He seemed genuinely curious.

"I suppose it's nice, I mean in a way one could say we managed to make up for the mistake of going after the White Fang." Weiss folded her arms, "If we can continue to help the common people out, I think it's a good idea."

"I agree with that sentiment." Blake nodded and let herself slouch to stand on one leg.

Ozpin then switched his gaze to Ruby who was looking a little downcast and twiddling her thumbs intermittently.

"Is something wrong Ms. Rose?" And suddenly all the attention in the room was focused on her.

"What? Me? Oh err… nothing! Everything's fine and dandy yup!" Ruby quickly put a wide smile on her face and nodded vigorously.

"And what about you Mr. Arc?" Ozpin now faced Jaune, who was stroking his chin idly in thought.

"…It's fine." He answered.

Ozpin lifted his brows in surprise, he could only feel a strange resignation coming from the prince, no fear or shock or anything else. Maybe it was because he had become used to all of the hijinks and antics surrounding him, the headmaster still remembered his reaction when he had learned that he might have to play witness for Team RWBY's potential trial for that incident on the highway.

Or maybe he had become better at keeping his cool, who knew?

"Pyrrha though…" He continued and looked over his shoulder at his partner who widened her eyes in response, "Are you going to be ok with this?" A knowing look on his face, and now the attention shifted to her.

"Huh? Oh! Err…it's fine really!" She shot him an awkward smile and held her hands up in front of her, "I think it's a good cause, raising morale over the city would be important, it would even help reduce the workload of the soldiers who have to defend the perimeter daily." She

"If you say so, Ren? Nora?"

"Whatever goes leader." Nora shrugged, Ren merely nodded along with her.

Jaune took deep breath and let it out slowly, "Alright then, so what happens now?"

Ozpin leaned back in his chair and adjusted his glasses, "Well since you all seem to be taking this a fair bit better than I expected, I suppose this means we should get down to business as soon as possible, now I should explain first of all…"

* * *

 _ **A few days later,**_

 _ **Armorican citadel,**_

In the fading light of day, a young girl strode through a long hallway, upright, proud, dignified and with a sense of purpose about her. In one hand she carried a watering can and in the other, a large black stereo system. She wore a green and yellow frock with her brunette hair tied into a short braid that hung down her back. A short while later, she exited the main doors of the castle keep and into the citadel's generally empty and open courtyard, it was circular in shape, with a path running along its sides as well as straight through to the main gate with the area in-between filled with a flowerbed on one side and a tall tree on the other side.

Humming a jaunty little tune to herself the girl walked over to the flowerbed with both items in hand, setting the stereo down at one side, she held the watering can over the flowerbed and slowly tipped it out with the other hand, shifting it back and forth to scatter over the entire flowerbed.

"Grow little ones!" She tried to urge them on.

 _Grow up,  
All at once,  
Raise your stems up high_

 _Glorious,  
Tall and proud,  
High as the sky reach-es_

With that little song done and with that watering can now empty she put it down, "And now…" She pulled out a pair of earplugs from her pocket and stuffed them into her ears and brought the stereo closer to the flowerbed, smacking her lips, she turned the volume all the way up to the maximum level, pressed the play button and…

 _SHOT THROUGH THE HEART  
AND YOU'RE TO BLAME  
DARLING YOU GIVE LOVE  
A BAD NAME  
I PLAY MY PART, YOU PLAY YOUR GAME  
YOU GIVE LOVE A BAD NAME_

The Royal Legionnaires standing guard at the top of the walls surrounding the citadel got the shock of their lives when the music starting blasting through the courtyard, reverberating against the stone walls and making the whole compound shake and shudder with the relentless pounding.

"What the-?" Marina Arc, sitting in her office at one side of keep overlooking the courtyard was startled by the sudden commotion, she moved quickly, rising out of her seat and drawing the curtain at the side of the window. Her jaw opened slightly and remained open as she watched several of the keep's denizens –administrators and guards alike- looking out at the same time to see her younger sister crouched low staring at the flowers growing in the courtyard.

Growling to herself but deciding that she probably needed the momentary distraction from her work, Marina set off to confront her younger sister, the only other member of her family currently staying in Armorica with her.

"Young mistress! What're you doing?" The maid Abigail called out futilely against the background of the music, she came flying out of the keep as quickly as she could; having come as soon as the music had started playing and had come close to falling off the chair she had been using to dust off some book shelves

Princess Victoria –better known as "Vicky" or Violet Arc- seemed to have sensed her presence as she turned around and waved at the maid who quickly reached the stereo right beside the princess and hit the stop button.

"Hey!" Violet took out her earplugs and shot the maid an angry pout, "The flowers were listening to that." She said.

"Young mistress this is not appropriate at all! And what do you mean the flowers were listening to that?" Abigail huffed, "They don't very well have ears do they?"

"I watched a video that said if you play music to a plant, it will grow faster." She explained simply.

"Wha…? I don't…? Why would you…? Huh…?" Abigail spluttered and stammered as she tried to find her own explanation for the princess's actions.

" _Vicky_ ," Both turned to find the governess herself striding up to the two, "What in god's name are you doing giving everyone headaches at five in the afternoon?" She narrowed her eyes.

"I'm trying to improve the ambience of our home," She raised both arms and spun back and forth, "It's always so dreary and damp I was hoping if the flowers grew more it could liven things up." She sighed.

"Uh huh…" Marina let her eyebrows jump once before turning to Abigail, "I'll take it from here Abby."

"Of course mistress." Abigail bowed her head respectfully before heading back into the keep.

Marina jobs watched her go before giving a look about the courtyard; shoot anyone else watching the scene a dirty look to tell them to get back to their jobs before turning again to look at her younger sister. Violet had her back turned to Marina with her hands clasped behind, her head hung low as she kicked a small stone and sent it rolling down the cobblestone path, skipping and cracking along as it went.

"Vicky, we've talked about this before-" Marina started slowly but was surprisingly cutoff by the normally quiet and demure girl.

"I wish Jaune was here… and Jas… and Lizzie… and Annie… and Kris…and…" She stopped for a moment before continuing, "And Kitty too…" She lowered her head and sniffed a little, "Why'd everyone have to leave? Didn't they like it here?"

 _It's a lot more complicated than that._ Marina kept her mouth shut knowing that spoken words were not going to help the situation. Ever since the attack two years ago which had so briefly reunited the family during the funeral, nothing had really been the same, the time when it had been decided to scatter the siblings had been an emergency measure to ensure the line might not be entirely eliminated should another attack occur. As it turned out the measure had most likely been overly extreme, after the short purge of any White Fang affiliates there had been nothing else from the terrorist group, sending the second pair of twins and one of the triplets away and basically disowning the two eldest children of the family probably did not help anyone's mentality at that point in time, and yet it was too late to reverse the decision. Jaune was now in Beacon training to be a hunter, Lizzie was at Signal following the same path, Jasmine was in Atlas working on her degree in engineering, Annie spent all her time at the Lonesome Fortress while Kris had virtually fallen off the edge of Remnant.

Leaving just Marina and Violet in their now _very_ empty house.

"Our family's really screwed up isn't it…?" Marina was snapped out of her thoughts when Violet spoke again and they stared at each other.

If an actual mother had heard her own daughter say words such as that, they would have immediately been all over them reassuring and comforting them, telling the plain and blatant white lie that everything was going to be ok and that the other family members were just "not going to be around for a while". Unfortunately Marina knew that Violet, shy and unassuming though she seemed, was far smarter than that, the former was also no mother no matter how hard she tried, and could not bring herself to even tell that lie, so she replied very simply:

"Yeah, it is."

"I wish we could all be family again." She looked down again.

Marina felt a pang in her heart looking at her downcast sister, "Look it's almost dinnertime, I just need to clear up a few things and then we can have lunch together, O-K?" She bent down with her hands on her knees.

"…Ok…" Violet pushed her lower lip out.

"Good girl," Marina smiled and pinched Violet's cheeks; the younger girl batted the older girl's hands away, picked up the stereo and marched off back towards the keep with Marina following close behind to keep an eye on her. They walked all the way to the main living room where a large television set was placed at one end of the room with a series of couches opposite, Marina watched as Violet placed the stereo at one side and plopped down onto the central couch and flicked it on with the remote.

Satisfied with where her sister was, Marina turned and walked away, heading back to her office with a sigh.

"Hey!" A shrill squeak sounded out that made Marina stop in her tracks, "Jaune's on TV!"

"He's what now?!" In an instant, Marina dashed right back to the living room, so fast she nearly fell over the top of the couch, eyes growing wide.

* * *

 **Now mythbusters probably doesn't exist in Remnant, but I've always found the conclusion to that little experiment somewhat hilarious. I KNOW I could've played death metal but for some reason it just did not fit, plus I'm not really the death metal type anyway.**

 **Continuing on with the theme of playing politics back and forth, I struggled initially on whether or not I wanted to go down this path because honestly, the RWBY universe isn't built to handle this kind of politicking that just opens up various cans of worms. I could really just have gone straight from the bar and then into the plan I had for V2.5 since the rest of this is just filler-material, but I didn't want to just leave the aftermath of the Breach at that, I will admit that its getting draggy at this point.**

 **And that's really all I have to say.**

 **I duly appreciate any reviews/thoughts, faves and follows!**


	35. The Prince's Speech

**"The King's Speech"**

 **"The Prince's Speech"**

 **You know...**

 **Well never mind that.**

 **I'm a whole month late this time, hopefully though I can get out the next chapter quickly and start getting the plot ball rolling again.**

* * *

"So…I guess this is it then…" Ironwood grunted as he watched the screen together with Ozpin and Glynda in Ozpin's office. On the screen, councillor Nyla was standing on a stage at a podium talking to a large crowd in front of her as camera flashes went off repeatedly. The stage was outdoors in an open field not far from the epicentre of the breach, trees lined all sides of the field, enclosing the area tightly.

" _Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, I will be brief, despite all of the tumult of the past days recent events, even in these rather dark times there have always been men and women ready to stand fast and do their duty no matter the cost, they are our shining beacons and guiding lights."_ Nyla spoke occasionally redirecting her gaze to a set of papers on the podium, _"Just a few days ago, a terrible tragedy took place, a plot by the Faunus terrorist group known as the White Fang destroyed the barriers separating Vale from the abandoned complex at Mountain Glenn…the resulting catastrophe caused a surge in Grimm activity and brought the beasts right into the very heart of this city. In spite of the chaos and confusion that reigned, men and women from all walks of life, police, civilian, soldier and hunter still came together as one to not only defend the city but also to assist in the cleanup and recovery efforts. Therefore we have come together today for the express purpose of celebrating our heroes, these courageous men and women who did not for a moment falter in doing their duty to the city of Vale and to the people who live in it."_ She paused for a moment.

"It's for the best I think," Ozpin leaned back into his chair and took his coffee cup in hand, "A little distraction for everyone involved…" He took a long sip before looking at the General, "I presume your best men are already working on this?"

"Of course," The General nodded, "I've been talking to the Vale Police Department and they've agreed to sharing intelligence with us so that we can best counter the White Fang's next movements, I'm hoping that we can clear them out quietly before the Vytal Festival takes place, that way the whole thing can go off as easily as it can and without any problems." He seemed quite confident about the whole thing.

"Let's hope so," Ozpin switched his attention back to the screen.

"I hope his highness can handle it, I wouldn't want to know what his family thinks about this." Glynda added in ruefully.

"I've little doubt his highness can handle it, it's whether or not he can handle what his family potentially has to say about it that I'm more worried about."

"You two sure have a lot of faith in the prince." Ironwood folded his arms and glanced back and forth between the two, a rather miffed look on his face, "Aren't they basically a relic of a bygone era at this point?"

Ozpin spun his chair to fully face Ironwood, "Weren't you there with me when his majesty made his speech?" One eyebrow raised high as he spoke, "They're an important symbol that the people can rally around in dark times, after all some old habits die hard, you saw for yourself their response to his appearance."

"I must admit that the prospect of having a prince running around leading the charge is rather…" Glynda furrowed her brows and tried to find the word she was looking for, "Romantic? Is that the word for it?"

"It _is_ an appealing thought; it might even be a welcome breath of fresh air." Ozpin seemed to share her opinion.

"We're past those days you two." Ironwood gruffly responded, "Knights in shining armor aren't what we need now, even if they're a useful symbol we can't go relying on such hollow beliefs."

"Is that why your Atlesian _Knights_ and _Paladins_ are so prevalent in your military?" Ozpin took the opportunity to prod him back.

Ironwood ground his teeth and directed a sharp look at the other headmaster, "Those are just names Ozpin."

"Quite thematic names you have then." Ozpin ignored him rather blithely, "Well it looks like they're about to begin." He watched as the camera panned over to a large group standing off to one side of the stage, standing right in front

"Did you warn his highness that they might expect a speech or something out of the group?"

"Ah…"

* * *

 _ **At the same time,**_

Camera flashes abounded to his left, right and front as Jaune watched the councillor –who he could still remember from the hearing barely a week ago- as she made her speech before the mostly silent crowd so far. He was standing right at the front of the line for seemingly no real reason, it made him uncomfortable knowing that he was going to be spotlighted like that, he wondered what his family would think of him for it. Being out in the spotlight again when he was _technically_ supposed to be hiding out.

Well, he would bear the consequences later.

 _Damn, I wonder if Marina is back home watching this, and uncle too, gah this is not going well at all…_ He scratched his head awkwardly until he felt a nudge from behind, he looked over his shoulder at Nora who seemed to be urging him forward.

"The queue is moving leader," She whispered, Jaune snapped his head back in front and then realised that he had gotten so lost in thought that he did not realise that the ceremony had already started and the trainees in front were already moving forward, his team was designated the last in the line with Team RWBY right in front of them already beginning to move to the stage as the councilwoman slowly read off and described each of the team's feats in glowing detail.

"Next we have an interesting team up," A little smirk formed on Nyla's face as she turned to her left, "Team RWBY, the perpetrators of last week's infamous incident on Highway 42," She turned back to crowd and read off from her paper on the podium, "Although we choose to remember their wrongful deeds so that such a thing might not happen again, we also in the same vein choose to honour them for their courage and determination, being instrumental in the final push to seal the breach, and thereafter continuing to assist with further relief efforts. Not one person asked them to perform this duty but they still did so, whether seeking their own personal redemption or simply because they chose to do so, they are heroes of the day the same as all the others standing with me today." She said proudly as the team walked up to join the others.

 _Here we go._ Jaune sucked in a lungful of air.

"And last but not least, a familiar team that some may recognize for their role at the end of last week's hearing," The councilwoman was looking directly at him with a small smile on her face. According to the headmaster this was supposed to just be a simple remembrance and acknowledgement thing that should not get overly complicated, "Team JNPR, rather than being a first-response team like the others here, Team JNPR was on their way to a scheduled mission in the morning when their bullhead was taken down by the Grimm, though crash-landing and being badly wounded as a result, the team first fought their way to linkup with other teams before turning around and fighting their way back to the breach despite being previously wounded."

 _Well they left out the part where the team was separated when me and Ren headed to the rear while Pyrrha and Nora continued forward._ Jaune almost smirked at the thought. With a hard swallow he began ascending the steps up the stage with his team following right behind him once Nyla had finished reading off their accomplishments.

Nyla turned and held out a hand which he took firmly in his grasp and shook it, "You should be proud of yourself and your team Mr. Arc." She smiled.

"Thank you ma'am." Jaune nodded in response and moved to stand beside Yang who nudged him with her shoulder and shot him a sly wink.

"Ladies and gentlemen, in the city's direst time of need these students unhesitatingly stepped up to its defence and its need. The city and its people owe you a great debt, hunters of Remnant; you may stand strong and hold your head high for what you have done for everyone." So saying she turned her head to face the students.

"Now a few words from the student leader…" And so saying Nyla turned around and seemed to gesture for Jaune to step up, or perhaps she was just gesturing for whichever student to come up.

Jaune barely prevented his lower jaw from hitting the floor.

 _STUDENT LEADER?!_ He screamed in his head, _GIVING A SPEECH?! No one said anything about this!_ Maintaining as straight a face as he possibly could as his mental state fried and went from zero to a hundred in single moment.

 _Ok calm down, maybe one of the Atlas students will pick up the ball, yeah that's right, one of them will probably just volunteer himself in a display of pride, nothing to worry about._ He tried to calm himself and seem nonchalant about the whole thing.

"Does Beacon even _have_ a student leader?" Someone voiced out in a slightly worried tone somewhere from the back, thankfully too far back for Nyla to hear him.

"I don't think so." Came a response from somewhere else.

"Ruby… _Ruby._ " Yang whispered off to the side, the reaper turned her head to look at her elder sister, who was wearing a big grin and nodding her head in the direction of the podium.

Ruby merely shook her head slightly and returned to facing the front.

Yang rolled her eyes and barely resisted smacking her forehead with her palm, she then turned to Jaune at her side and nudged him again.

"Go for it Jaune-y." She tried to edge him forward.

"No, _bad idea_." Jaune responded tersely.

"Wanna hear a worse idea?"

"What?"

"Letting the councillor stand there in front of the press and thousands of people watching their screens looking like an idiot while we confusedly mouth to each other quietly on the stage." Yang quickly whispered.

"She has a point there leader." Nora interjected, leaning over to Jaune's side.

"You can't be serious you two, I can't-" And then before he could argue any further, Yang placed one hand on his back and said:

"I believe in you Jaune, now go out there and grab 'em by the balls...or something."

And then she pushed him forward.

Caught off-guard, Jaune nearly fell down on the stage itself, but was just barely able to catch himself in time before he actually face-planted into the stage floor. Too late, the moment he looked up Nyla was already making way for him on the podium, standing to one side with a welcoming smile and a hand outstretched in front of her towards the podium and –in Jaune's mind at least- his certain doom.

With one last glance at the others who were looking at him encouragingly, he took a large and heavy gulp and walked right up to the podium. There, in front of all of the reporters, with the whole world probably watching, with his own family back in home probably facepalming and gnashing their teeth in worry that he might trip up and completely humiliate himself…

He was at a complete loss for words as he stepped up and took adjusted the mic to his level; his knees were shaking badly, heart pounding like a jackhammer in his chest as he stared down the large crowd of people watching very interestedly and paying –in his opinion- overly close attention to him. Amidst his jumbled collection of thoughts that were running at breakneck speed through his rather muddled mind at the moment, one thought did manage to stand out.

He was going to get back at the blonde brawler somehow.

"Good afternoon everyone," He just managed to kill any stammer that might have formed, "my apologies for the slight delay, there was a bit of a… _mixup_ …involving…whether or not the councillor was referring to…the ah…" He took a moment to clear his throat, "The Haven student leader or the Beacon student leader. Just a…uh…minor coincidence that's all."

 _Oh real smooth Jaune, just foist the blame onto the councillor and the other cohort of students, real smooth_.He chastised himself internally, a round of snickering could barely be heard coming up from behind him, but thankfully no one seemed to notice.

* * *

 _ **Ozpin's office,**_

"Good save your highness." Ozpin smirked blithely from behind his coffee cup.

"This is ridiculous…" Ironwood continued grumbling, "He's going to make a fool of himself and end up an embarrassment!"

"Oh hush you, why don't you just wait and watch? Like I said I have confidence that his highness can handle it."

"And like _I_ said in turn, I find your faith in a teenage prince to be disturbing." Ironwood shot back, "How on Remnant you can be so trusting in his capacity to maintain tact and function in a situation like this to be beyond me, he's only seventeen for crying out loud!" He protested rather vehemently.

"Well it's rather too late for that now is it?"

* * *

 _Ok look, just go with the flow, introduce yourself, say some nice things, privilege and honour and all that jazz, and then say thank you and bug out._

"Thank you madam councillor for having me here, my name is Jaune Arc, as many of you already know I am the leader of Team JNPR…" He took a breath, straining to think of the next thing to say, "I…I doubt there is much else that I could add on to the councillor's words here. But…I…I think…" And then he locked up.

 _But I think what? Come on say something you imbecile!_

"I just wanted to say…thank you…to everyone." He managed to force out.

"Not just Madam Councillor here for the appreciation ceremony," He turned his head and directed a small smirk at her before turning back to face the crowd without watching her reaction, "But I also wanted to thank all of the citizens of the city of Vale for all of their support. As a trainee hunter, while it is _my_ duty to protect and serve, I would not otherwise be able to do so without the…continuing courage and…assistance of …ordinary people who although had the chance to evacuate, chose to make a stand alongside so many others to try to buy time for help to arrive." He took a deep breath and tried to collect his thoughts properly.

"I'm saying this…because I feel like they should be given that respect for the work they do." He finally said, "Speaking as trainee, my aura is unlocked…I think everyone would already know this and consider this obvious. But people like the policemen and women of the Vale Police Department, the emergency services, the soldiers from Atlas, they don't have the same abilities and training that I and so many other trainees have, and yet they still came through when everyone needed them most. It wasn't just the skill and power of the trainees like me that fought on the ground; it was also the determination and strength of these heroes that allowed the breach to be sealed so quickly. Dozens may have died during the breach, but thanks to their help and their efforts hundreds more that could have been lost were saved." Jaune stopped for a moment to catch another breath before continuing.

"It takes real guts and gumption to be able to stand against the Grimm, I know you're probably wondering what I'm talking about since I face them on a regular basis." A small joke just to ease the crowd through, although if her were honest, the prince was not really paying attention to the mood of the crowd as his eyes flicked over them back and forth, "But it's easy for me to do so because I can trust in my aura to protect me from grievous injuries. for a person who does not have the training that I do, to still willingly go up against a wall of screaming teeth and claws without hesitation knowing that they might not live to see the next day…I think that is something truly noteworthy and deserving of admiration. I…I hope that in the coming days, as we look to each other for comfort and support in the aftermath of this tragedy, that we will still remember the ultimate sacrifice that they made…" and a minor thought came to Jaune as he finished that part.

"And…and to the friends and families of those…brave men and women who died to close the breach."

 _Here goes absolutely nothing…_ He bit his lower lip.

"I understand how you feel and I know that part of you might feel anger at this and how it could have been prevented…I…I probably have no right to ask anything of you, but I'll ask that you be patient, and that as you mourn the loss of your loved ones that you…also take pride in their deeds and actions." A short breather again, "I should know…two years ago, my home Armorica was attacked by the White Fang," His voice hitched in his throat for a bit before he cleared it roughly, "It's only been two years and it's a long way from that ancient city down here to Vale, so…

 _So…what now?_

"Please don't use this tragedy as an excuse to hate on others just because they are different from you, we are all humans, we are all people, and we are all in this together…" Jaune clicked his tongue and lowered his eyes momentarily before raising it back up, "We shouldn't let this divide us…" He stuck out his lower lip momentarily.

"That's all I have to say." He finished, "Once again Madam Councillor thank you for having me here."

And as he backed away from the podium –in somewhat of a daze- and went to stand back at the empty space left between Yang and Nora, a resounding chorus of applause erupted throughout the area. He stopped midstep and turned around to see the entire crowd abuzz with emotion and heartily clapping their hands together in apparent affirmation of his speech, and when he turned back to face the other trainees –in particular Team RWBY and his own team- they too were joining in with the applause wholeheartedly.

Even the normally completely stoic Councilwoman seemed to be wearing a genuine smile on her face as she clapped more lightly than most.

Yang bumped Jaune's shoulder again and he turned to face her, "Knew you could totally do it." A grin spreading from one cheek to the other.

"Man who writes your speeches leader?" Nora asked with wide-eyes.

"…I don't know." He shook his head from side to side, still not quite believing in what he had just managed to pull off.

"That was beautiful Jaune." Pyrrha was positively beaming

"Thanks." Was all he managed to reply.

The ceremony did not go on for much longer than that, and it did not take long for Nyla to close dismiss it, at the back of the stage she managed to take the opportunity to meet up with the self-appointed "student leader" who got volunteered for the job.

"Quite an interesting speech Mr. Arc, while the execution could probably have been done better, I must admit that I did not expect a person of your age would think so far as to deliver a tribute to more… _ordinary_ folks as you put it yourself." She seemed quite pleased about the whole affair to the trainees.

"Uh… _thanks_ I guess?" Jaune nodded in response, "In return I think I should be honest with you too…I'm not actually the student leader." That made her eyebrows jump, but she remained quiet as Jaune continued explaining, "Beacon doesn't _have_ a student representative ma'am, there's no such position in the Academy for _any_ of the different years."

"So then what was that about?"

"Well…" Jaune smiled awkwardly, "Uh…I decided it wasn't a good idea to embarrass you in front of the whole audience…not with the press and all."

"Huh, I _see_ ," She folded her arms and leaned back, "I didn't know that, Ozpin gave me the go-ahead when I asked if I could have the students add in a few words of their won, I do apologize for not making that part clear. Still, I suppose that that was…a rather serious lack of consideration on my part." Nyla straightened her glasses and cleared her throat, "I know I should have properly confirmed the details with the headmaster and the general for who were the appropriate leaders of the contingents, I somehow assumed that you were the student leader, I apologize for that assumption." She duly bowed her head.

Jaune immediately backed off a little when she did that, "No I mean-!" He held up both of his hands in front of him, "I just…wasn't prepared for it I guess…" He scratched his head awkwardly.

"Well then, I suppose it would be prudent for the both of us to not let such a thing happen again hm?"

"Pfft, I hope not." Yang thumped Jaune on his back again, and draped one arm around his shoulders, "Methinks Jaune-y here needs some more confidence building."

"Perhaps," Nyla nodded in agreement, "On the other hand I can say with a fair amount of certainty that he has far better measure of himself than you do for yourself Ms. Xiao Long."

Yang's arm immediately went slack and it fell off of Jaune's shoulder, the latter dusted himself off while the former tried her best to remain composed in front of the councillor, "Ehehe," She tried to laugh it off, "I-"

"Well I suppose I should be going," Nyla gave a quick look at the watch on her arm, "I wish you all the best Mr. Arc." She held out one hand which he took and shook firmly, "In your studies and life ahead."

She looked over the eight of them, "That goes for the rest of you too, and for Team RWBY in particular, _do continue_ to stay out of trouble, I would hate to have to raise another inquiry and hearing into your activities." She raised her noise slightly at them.

"I assure you we're doing our best to make amends ma'am." Weiss answered.

"I should hope so, well then I bid you all farewell." With a slight bow she walked away and off into the distance.

Silence descended onto them before it was broken by one monkey Faunus, "Just so you know Jaune," Sun piped up as he walked up from behind, "Haven doesn't have a student representative either."

"Ah ha ha…yeah I guessed…sorry about that." Jaune chuckled, "I was trying to thinkof an excuse so that all the murmuring did not seem so weird."

"Trouble is," Sun folded his arms but held up one finger, "There were actually only two Haven teams involved in the first response, here's one." He gestured to himself, "The other one is…" He looked around back and forth, "Is…uhm…"

"I think Arslan's gone Sun." Sage remarked.

"Who's that?" A few people voiced out.

"Another student from Haven, she's the team leader of the _other_ first response team." Sun waved it off, "In any case, do you guys have anything planned out? I mean we still have the rest of the day to ourselves seeing as we basically skipped classes for this…"

To this Jaune found himself cutting lose a very loud yawn that came out of nowhere, "Sorry I'll pass, that was kind of exhausting, I don't think I'll ever want to do that again." A little shudder went through him.

"I must say that was very inspirational though." Scarlet piped up, "Was that your announcement that you were running for election?" He made a teasing smile.

That caught the prince-in-hiding so off-guard that he barked out a loud laugh, "I don't think anyone would even vote for me…" He waved it off.

"I would." Pyrrha quickly said, Jaune spun to look at her with a surprised look, she was beaming at him, "That was beautiful Jaune, I've…never really thought that much of those who didn't have the skills and abilities that we have." She bashfully admitted.

Before Jaune could respond Weiss was already speaking, "I know, I guess it's easy to forget that the Grimm _really are_ pretty scary when you're not equipped to deal with them."

"But that's why we're here," Ruby then butted in, "We're here so that they _don't have_ to be afraid of the Grimm, we're here to do the best we can to protect them with what we have."

They all fell silent together, smiles abounded all around as they nodded in agreement with what each had said in turn.

"I think we've congratulated ourselves enough," Jaune stretched out his back, "Time to go home gang."

"Yeah, I think's Renny here is about to fall asleep on his feet." Nora pet her partner on his back, the latter was clearly having a hard time keeping his eyes open, partially leaning on the hammer maiden for support. With that last word said, it was made completely clear to everyone that the primary issue was just getting back to the Academy to rest and relax for the remainder of the day.

Alas, despite their fervent desires that was not to be.

"Excuse me? Ms. Nikos?" They all turned to find a somewhat short-ish woman with dark hair tied in a bun wearing a suit with a large mic and a cameraman behind her, "Hi, my name is Meg Clark. We were wondering if we could get a few words from you on the recent events surrounding the breach?" Pyrrha's eyes flickered for a moment and she turned to Jaune, who simply shrugged and answered with:

"Your choice Pyrrha, I'll wait for you if you want to go ahead with h-."

"Oh and I was wondering if you could spare a moment of your time to Mr. Arc? It's not common to find Armorican natives outside of the Royal Enclaves, even less easy to find ones willing to comment on the Bombing of the Royal Enclaves." She offhandedly remarked.

To this Jaune simply painted the _least_ convincing smile on Remnant –in fact it looked more like a grimace- and answered, "Sorry but no, and no comment on the attack either." And he quickly continued before she could say anything else, "And that's final."

She seemed to at least understand that level of resolution in his voice because she turned away from him and back to the champion of Mistral, "Ms. Nikos you've been keeping away from the spotlight for some time now and little has been seen of you since you departed Mistral to attend Beacon Academy, would you care to answer a few questions?"

"Uh, well…" Pyrrha looked back to Jaune for help, he simply smile and shrugged at her, "I think…I'll take your questions another time, I really have to get going now, life at Beacon Academy can be quite a hassle, I suppose that's to be expected of an Academy that trains the best and the brightest that humanity has to offer." And so saying she quickly turned and began walking away with Jaune following suit behind her and Nora quickly pulling Ren along with her.

"Uh, hey wait a minute-" He heard the reporter call out before she was suddenly stopped, the prince-in-hiding looked over his shoulder to see Weiss apparently standing in her way.

"My name is Weiss Schnee, I'd be honoured to accept any questions you have regarding the breach and the actions undertaken by my team in the course of the event." The heiress had appeared seemingly out of nowhere in-between in front of the reporter, who stumbled and was shocked when one famous teenager was replaced all of a sudden with a slightly different –but still altogether rather well-known- teenager. It startled even Jaune momentarily, and he could not help but turn back to listen and watch as to what Weiss was going to do next.

"Erm, ahem…" The rather disconcerted reporter cleared her throat and managed to keep her head on straight, "W-well in that case Ms. Schnee, perhaps we could start off with…" While the questioning started, Weiss held one hand behind her and gave Jaune an 'ok' signal and seemed to gesture for him to shoo off quickly as the rest of Team RWBY stayed behind but remained off to one side such that they were off camera. Satisfied that his compatriots were doing fine and could –probably- handle the reporter without needing any help from him, he left with the rest of his team and headed back to the Academy.

When the bullhead landed back on the Academy grounds, the team was surprised by to see the headmaster standing there with his coffee cup as usual.

"Headmaster? Is something wrong?"

"Good afternoon, _student representative_ ," Ozpin saluted with his coffee cup, a barely disguised smirk on his face as he did so, "Quite the speech Mr. Arc, I'm here to apologize to you for not informing you and other student leaders of a need to elect an informal student representative prior to the actual ceremony, that was an oversight on my part and I do sincerely apologize for it." He bowed his head a little.

"Uh well…at least it all went off ok right?" Jaune tried to laugh it off.

"It was alright, nothing too shabby. Still, I must admit that it's not too often to see hunters themselves pay tribute to the more… 'ordinary' folk as it were. I think you definitely surprised many people with that speech of yours, it's already the talk of the Rem-net." Ozpin sipped from the cup, "It's already been noted that this is only the _third time_ that you and your team –as well as Team RWBY- are making news, a lot of people are already speculating on what next you're going to be involved in."

"I'd rather not tempt fate that way headmaster." Jaune seemed to shudder a little, "I prefer to think it's just our luck that all this is happening to us again and again."

"Hmm yes well…fate does move in strange ways." He cast a sparing glance at the other three, "Regardless, you are free to enjoy the rest of the day as you please, good day to all of you." He did a little wave before walking away.

"To the dorm then, away we go!" Jaune cheered weakly, followed by a short whoop from Nora as they marched off.

Back in the dorm, Ren was out once he hit the showers, changed out and flopped onto the bed, Nora chose to put up her headphones and lean back against the wall with her eyes closed, head gently knocking in accordance to the beat of the tune.

"You know Jaune, I feel like I really ought to say this…" Out of nowhere, Pyrrha started talking right as the person in question fell onto his bed in his casual clothes.

 _Oh god this better not be about her feelings again, please god I really don't want to have to deal with now. Shit I thought that was just an in-the-moment thing why on Remnant does she have to…_ Calming himself down with a deep breath, Jaune turned to face his partner with a pleasant smile.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"That speech you gave, it was…really touching…" She was beaming at him as she tented her fingers.

"Ah…yeah well, haha I don't really know what went through my head," Jaune rubbed his forehead, "I guess…well…I was really worried that I was going to mess up in front of a live audience and completely ruin everything but…" He shrugged with a shit-eating grin on his face, "It all worked out in the end, I'm thankful for that." He gazed wistfully up at the ceiling, wondering what his family would have thought about all that he had just done.

Maybe he ought to call back just to check tonight.

"But seriously Jaune," Pyrrha folded her arms into her stomach and leaned forward across the gap between their beds, "I'll be perfectly honest with you, I've never really thought much about…you know…those ordinary people that aren't going to be hunters like us, but who are still willing to put their lives on the line every single day while we train here in this academy." She noted thoughtfully before giggling, "Gosh, it sounds so demeaning when you say it like that." The champion chuckled, " _Ordinary people_ , but still, I suppose in a way, their willingness to perform such feats would make them _extra_ -ordinary right?"

"Well one could say that that depends on your personal view," Jaune watched her out of the corner of her eye, "Do you think it takes a special sort of person to be a hero? Or do you think that anyone can be a hero as long as they want to be?" He raised both of his eyebrows as she seemed to descend into deep thought about it.

"Well…I…" She seemed to struggle for a bit before Jaune reached over and patted her lap with one hand.

He smiled, "Relax, like I said don't think too hard about it," He pulled his hand back, and then a thought occurred to him, "If you keep thinking like that you're going to get white hair faster you know." A little tease to try and lighten the situation.

In response, Pyrrha took a handful of her hair and held it up in front of her face for inspection, smirking as she let it fall away, "I think I still have more than a few years on me." She confidently said, "Anyway, I think…hmm… _heroes_ ," She stroked her chin still clearly deep in thought, "I'm…not sure what the answer to that question is." A sigh of resignation filtered out of her.

"Yeah? Well I suppose this isn't really the proper sort of place to discuss it in anyway," Jaune pushed out his lower lip and looked contemplative, "Heroes…hunters…" The thought swam through his mind slowly.

Pyrrha sat up a little straighter, "Then what do you think makes a hero Jaune?" Now it was her turn to ask questions.

"…I don't know." He answered after a short pause, "Even though I said that they deserved that respect for being so brave in the face of danger, should we really be honouring them? After all one thought would be that we shouldn't be making heroes out of people who're just doing their job…"

"But didn't you say that it was _because_ of their devotion to their duty even under such circumstances that we should choose to give them that respect?" Pyrrha quirked an eyebrow.

"…Yeah I did say that," Jaune reached out above his head with both hands, stretching his back with a loud groan of satisfaction as he did so, placing them both behind his head, "I just wonder sometimes if our constant idolizing and mythologizing of every single person who ever died in the line of duty is just…I don't how to put it…excessive?"

"But…I don't think that's a bad thing," Pyrrha tried to point out, "Shouldn't we be commemorating those who've performed above and beyond their duty? Aren't they worthy of our respect?"

"I guess so…" Jaune simply muttered quietly, "Man, what _are_ we doing? Discussing heroes so seriously? Now I feel like I'm some pretentious idiot who thinks he knows everything," He adjusted himself so that he was lying on his belly, "Ah well…it's not like I'm looking to be a hero or anything."

Silence descended on them as Pyrrha leaned back and contemplated for herself the exchange that has just occurred between them. In the end they just left the conversation at that and went back to doing their own thing, although now that they had stopped, the room fell quite silent. Unknowingly, Jaune slowly let himself drift off into a daze; he closed his eyes and within a few minutes, was out like a light.

* * *

 _ **Meanwhile,**_

A certain Atlesian Specialist was having a snack in the mess hall and watching the ceremony on one of the television screens in the hall when a muted buzzing hummed in one of the pockets on the coat that she wore; Winter Schnee tore her eyes away from the screen where she was watching her younger sister handle an impromptu interview with a reporter on her actions during the breach and reached into aforementioned pocket. She fished her scroll out and took notice of General Ironwood's contact presented on the scroll, she quickly pressed the connect button.

"Winter, go ahead General." She answered.

"Specialist, I need you to come down to my office as soon as possible, I have someone here that I'd like you to meet. It pertains to further operations against the White Fang." A straightforward order, just the way she liked it.

"Got it, I'll be there in a few minutes sir," The Specialist stood up, crumpling the paper her sandwich had been wrapped up in and tossing it into a bin as she swiftly walked out. The distance from the mess hall to the offices was not very far, as she went on her way she took a note of the hustle and bustle around her, the breach had dramatically increased the tempo of operations in the entire region, flights of airships were cycling through around the clock rearming and refuelling before being sent out again, bullheads were delivering casualties to hospitals and returning with fresh reinforcements to the front. She turned her head momentarily to watch the various aircraft soar overhead, it was a miracle thus far that accidents had been kept to a minimum.

It was all really quite a big mess.

Thankfully, it _had_ been a few days since the breach and things were at least winding down to a limited extent, although tensions remained high, everyone could at least breathe a little easier. The most dangerous period had largely passed and now the focus was primarily on ensuring that the borders were secure and properly fortified this time in the event of another such incident that might occur.

With that thought concluded, Winter quickly found herself in front of General Ironwood's office.

She raised her hand and rapped her knuckles on the door, she was swiftly answered with an, "Enter." And with that she walked into the room, the good General was at his desk with another man dressed in what appeared to be the Vale Police Department's uniform sitting at one side of the room.

"Sir," She snapped to attention and delivered an impromptu salute.

"At ease," Ironwood returned the salute as he stood up and walked over to the middle of the room as did the man, "Specialist this is Inspector Robert Peel of the Vale Police Department, I've brought him in to facilitate further cooperation between the Atlesian Military and the local law enforcement in tracking the White Fang and its activities." He introduced the silver-haired, balding, middle-aged man with a hairbrush-moustache and a rather short-ish, stout frame, Inspector Peel smiled and nodded, stretching his hand out which Winter shook firmly.

"Inspector, I'd like you to meet Specialist Winter Schnee, she's one of our very best." Ironwood introduced the Specialist in turn.

"Good to have you with us Inspector," Winter greeted cordially with a smile.

"Same to you, a pleasure to meet you Ms. Schnee, I didn't know that the SDC also had heirs serving within the military." He had a rather gruff voice as he bowed his head a little; Winter grimaced a little at that, having a family that was so often in the spotlight meant that it was hard to get anywhere or indeed anything done without it being brought up every now and again. Despite her best attempts at breaking the shackles off by going somewhere where she hoped she could make it on her own, the name was -almost literally- glued to her.

Seeing the Specialist's short bout of consternation at having her name and origins brought up all of a sudden, General Ironwood quickly interjected as they released each other's hands, "The Inspector is here to brief us on the VPD's operations to track the White Fang's movements and operations through the City and the surrounding region."

"The long and short of it is that the breach caught everyone one of us with our pants down," The Inspector's face suddenly darkened as he folded his arms, "We had an inkling for the longest time that they had something big planned, but they kept a tight lid on their operations. We tried infiltrating our own assets but that wasn't very…successful on our part, we were however able to track a number of their operative's movements…" He took up a brown file that he had been carrying under his armpit all this while, "Is there someplace… _more private_ I should say?"

General Ironwood simply walked behind his desk and fiddled with something apparently just underneath it. With a whir and a click, the window behind him suddenly fogged up to such an extent that it might as well have been opaque as a dull and low hum sounded out through the room, "The room is completely sealed Inspector, nothing goes in or out of here but what passes within the occupants." He set his face straight and looked at Winter, "This is an informal first meeting that I set up with the Commissioner of the VPD. Technically speaking this should not be happening as the VPD is supposed to wait for the council to pass a Bill enabling cross-communication between the Atlesian Military and the VP. But that could take a while to pass so until a formal line of communication is properly established, Inspector Peel here will act as the go-between from their side…while you will act as ours, is that understood?"

"Loud and clear sir." Winter answered.

"Good, now Inspector, if you would?"

Inspector Peel lifted an eyebrow in apparent fascination at the lockdown, he merely walked up to the General's desk with his file, opening it and setting it down on the table as Winter moved beside him, within the file was contained numerous photographs of various Faunus across Vale, "The White Fang has always kept a presence within Vale proper, but for the most part they are… _were_ a benign force, the last major incident was the bombing of the Royal Enclaves two years ago, but that was out of our jurisdiction." He explained thusly, "And at the time, a new issue was starting to brew up…" He reached into the file and took out one photo in particular of a certain red-headed criminal.

"Roman Torchwick." Winter narrowed her eyes at the face.

"Yes, as I understand it he is currently in your custody?" He looked up and General Ironwood nodded.

"We're holding him for now in a secure location in the base until we can figure out what to do with him."

"Good, I should like to see him for myself if possible, but before that let me continue…" Peel directed their attention back to the photos, "At first we didn't realise the connection between the two, it was only a couple of months ago when a new incident brewed up at the Vale port that brought both the White Fang and Torchwick to our attention." He stood up straight and backed off for a moment, stroking his chin as he directed his gaze upwards.

"Roman himself was spotted together with numerous White Fang operatives apparently attempting to raid a shipment of dust that was arriving at the port. Coincidentally –or maybe not-, the people involved in this incident were the same ones later involved in the Highway 42 incident…" Both Winter and Ironwood exchanged a passing glance as the Inspector kept a thoughtful look on his face.

"Well never mind that, in any case this put the White Fang back on our scope, but we had taken our eye off the ball for too long, the troopers that were apprehended didn't give us much to work off. Still, we began trying to track them down piecemeal, the few pictures you see here…" He bent over and stabbed a finger on the first photos, "Are of their known couriers, we spent the next few months tracking them and trying to build-up a database of their known safe houses."

"Has there been any attempt to infiltrate and tap their safe houses?" Winter asked as she poured over the photos.

"Not yet, they keep their safe houses locked down real tight, they usually keep at least a few men inside so we can't really break-in to plant anything. In addition to that, after that little incident with that rogue team of children, it put a damper on all our operations and made the White Fang lockup even harder."

"You didn't try to apprehend any of their couriers?" Winter fingered one photo while looking at the Inspector out of the corner of her eye.

He looked quite surprised at the question, "What charge would we hold them on anyway? Following even one of them in a day already requires a lot of work, time and manpower; we're short of all three."

Winter accepted the explanation with her own nod; the VPD probably was not even equipped to begin handling an operation of the magnitude that the Inspector was talking about. They probably did not even have the techniques or the technology to track and identify like Atlas had, which would in turn explain the sheer amount of grunt work that would've needed to be done in order to accomplish their tasks, hence the large amount of physical data that they seemingly had on hand rather than any traceable electronic footprints.

"We don't have much data on our end ourselves since we only recently started operations in Vale," Ironwood said as he took a step back, "A couple of years ago the White Fang cell in Atlas enacted a series of assassination attempts against the SDC, since then we've run them into the ground, let's hope Vale should not have to undergo any more brazen acts such as these."

"Indeed," Peel replied grimly, "Although we still aren't clear about it, our analysts now suggest that all of the dust that Roman had been stealing was possibly geared towards destroying the numerous barriers that had been erected in the tunnel to block the Grimm, thereby opening Vale itself to an onslaught of Grimm."

Winter's eyes went wide; she looked at General Ironwood and made to open her mouth before the General shook his head, thankfully the Inspector did not seem to notice this. Evidently he had not yet been informed of Atlas's secret little raid to disrupt the White Fang which inadvertently ended up causing the breach itself, and from the look of it, it seemed that that operation was going to remain under wraps until further notice.

"I suppose it would be presumptuous of me to ask if you managed to infiltrate any assets into the organisation itself?" Winter asked as she flicked through some photos.

A scoff came out of Peel, "It's rather difficult for us to find men or women with the capacity to perform those kinds of tasks, although tensions between humans and Faunus are at an all-time low, those times when policemen targeted Faunus for discrimination aren't far behind us. Sad to say, but I must admit that prejudice hasn't left the force, a large percentage of our frontline officers are still human, and the White Fang don't look all that kindly upon human sympathizers now, not since they were radicalized into the form they are now." Peel bowed his head in seeming contemplation, "That's our side of the story, now I suppose it's time for yours." His eyebrows jumped.

Ironwood returned to his desk and sat down, "The Atlesian Military only arrived in force a couple of weeks ago, we were still in the midst of setting up parts of our base when the breach happened, as it was we were lucky we were able to gather together in strength to repel the threat. We came into Vale under the assumption that the White Fang were a potentially major threat that could seek to use the upcoming Vytal Festival as a means to make a statement, however given the length of time between our arrival and the date of the festival itself we presumed that we could take advantage of the time to have all of our assets in place first before the festival, I don't think any of us expected them to have the capacity hit so soon and at such a magnitude."

"Yes, I suppose in hindsight the VPD should've seen the warning signs with Torchwick, data analysis indicates that he ramped up the scale and intensity of his raids with the last year but we didn't know why, at the time we hypothesized that he was merely getting greedy and more bold with each successful attempt." Peel let out a great sigh, "It's unfortunate that we never made the connection in time." He cast his eyes downward and silence fell in the room except for the dull hum emitting through the room.

"Well that said, for now we need to figure out what's our next course of action is going to be," Ironwood clasped his hands on his desk, "The Atlesian Military has far more resources at its disposal, perhaps we should start with the White Fang's known safe houses."

"I don't have that data with me now, I'll try to get it sent down. In the meantime, in order to facilitate better teamwork, may I suggest setting up a joint-operations room in which both sides can work in the same place? It would certainly make things easier for both of us I think?"

"We'll have to see about that at a later point, this is just a first meeting to get each other up to speed, is there anything else you'd like to discuss Inspector?" Ironwood asked pointedly.

"Yes… about that Roman Torchwick fellow," Peel stroked his chin thoughtfully while support one arm with the other, "I should like to see that man for myself if possible, not to conduct an interrogation but just to be able to see him put in his place. The cunning man has bedevilled us for no small amount of time and I should like to at least have the satisfaction –and in turn deliver this news to the rest of the VPD- of seeing him in a state where he can no longer elude justice anymore." With that said Peel clasped both of his hands behind his back.

"I think that can be arranged," Ironwood agreed, "Specialist if you would please show the Inspector to our detention facility, but before that…" He paused momentarily, "I need to have a short word with you." That raised eyebrows on the Inspector and the Specialist, "Inspector, if you would."

"Ah, well then I shall be waiting outside," He made a slight bow and began gathering up the photos in the file before retrieving a high-peak cap from the chair that he had been sitting on before backing out of the room, Winter watched him as he went up until the door finally clicked close before she turned to face the General.

"He doesn't know." She said flatly.

"No one but a select few know that the operation has taken place," Ironwood responded just as categorically.

 _And the "select few" just happens to include a Mercenary Princess from the Royal Enclaves who I can only trust will be able to keep her side of the bargain and maintain a tight lid on that mouth of hers._ Winter grumbled to herself.

"I shouldn't need to tell you to exercise utmost discretion in the information that you reveal to him, also while he may _see_ Torchwick, the good Inspector must not at any point be able to converse or have any contact with that criminal, understood?" It was certainly a very stern command, Winter did not expect anything less.

"Perfectly sir." Was all she needed to say.

"Good, dismissed." And with a wave of his hand she snapped to attention and saluted before exiting the room to find the Inspector calmly waiting just outside the door.

"I think it'll be faster if we walk there rather than try to get transport, it may be a distance away though if that's ok with you." Winter explained.

"It's fine, you're not concerned about security by just letting a civilian like me walk all over your fine military base?" He seemed rather surprised.

"If the General saw fit to bring you all the way in, I'm sure he trusts you to be discreet on your own Inspector." The Specialist walked ahead, "Just follow me for now."

For the most part, both were silent on their journey ,it _was_ indeed a fair distance away, past the landing pads, hangars and the barracks, the detention facility was an impromptu one, no one had yet expected to have to hold potential prisoners and so rather than a proper place being established to do so, the Atlesian Military had made do by using the holding cell of an airship that was yet to be deployed for operation. So far guarded 24/7 by a large team of soldiers on board the airship with a bare minimum of his needs catered for. Winter noted to herself that by all rights he ought to have been handed over to the local authorities so that the man could be properly tried and sentenced for his crimes, but as the aftermath of the breach was still wearing on everyone's minds, for now he was simply locked away where he could cause no trouble.

Still, the thought of him reminded her that one of his lackeys had gotten away from her, that strange, short, ice-cream styled girl. She had seemingly fled at the end of their little engagement and that had been the end of that, the Specialist held no illusions that she was dead just because the Grimm had overrun the tunnel, no body had been recovered after all and she had been a thoroughly skilled opponent. It was likely that she had instead gotten out in the confusion and chaos in the opening moments of the breach and was biding her time someplace else, probably planning and waiting for an opportunity to rescue Torchwick.

"We're here," She waved down the guard that saluted her as she entered the airship and headed to the main control room where she could give him a view from the airship's CCTV cameras.

"Hmm, quite the place you have here," Peel spoke in wonder.

"It's the best we've got for now," Winter entered the control room with Peel right behind, the internal control room had multiple rows of control stations were men and women sat and worked, and several large screens at the front.

"Specialist," One of the men at the control station delivered an improvised salute, she waved him down.

"At ease sergeant, can you pull up a view of Roman Torchwick on the screen?"

"Of course, just a moment," A few clicks on the keyboard and up on one of the screens in front did Roman Torchwick appear, lounging around in one of the cells rather aimlessly.

" _There he is_ ," Peel closed his eyes and let out a long sigh of relief on seeing the criminal, "I must say I can't wait to have him be made to stand in front of judge and jury and made to answer for all of his crimes. After that we'll clap him in irons and put him away for the rest of his life." He declared resolutely and pressed his palms together, wringing his hands, "That man has caused enough trouble for the city. Why…if I had the chance I'd…" He clenched his fists tightly, not a word need be said to describe what the Inspector wished to do.

"He'll face justice in due time Inspector." Winter quickly said as sternly as possible to remind the Inspector.

That had a calming effect as the Inspector released his grip slowly, "I…yes…yes of course…of course he will," He straightened himself out and cleared his throat harshly.

"…Is there anything else Inspector?" The Specialist asked with her most professional smile.

"No, I think I've-" They were interrupted when Roman Torchwick apparently started speaking.

" _Can I at least get some proper ventilation in here, this place is a damn oven!"_ He yelled loudly over the intercom.

"…Seen quite enough." And with that said, the duo exited the room quickly, not too long after that the Inspector and the Specialist bid each other farewell before they returned to their respective posts.

* * *

 _ **Elsewhere,**_

"Pfft, _look at him_ ," Emerald scoffed and rolled her eyes at Jaune as he spoke on the screen in their dorm room in Beacon, "What does he think he's doing? Running for election?" She snickered.

"Makes me want to wipe the damn floor with his princely ass first, and then wipe it again with his guts," Mercury shook his head, "Dust above this shit makes me wanna puke."

" _Yet another_ idiotic child," Cinder smirked, "I must admit I had a few reservations about potentially coming to grips with the Royal Family, but it seems like if this is all they can muster; we may as well forget about them for now and switch our focus back." She leaned back onto her bed and crossed one leg over the other as the screen continued rolling the video.

"Can we turn this shit off, I don't really wanna have to listen to this." Emerald complained.

"You're the one who got bored and turned it on in the first place," Mercury snickered.

"Oh I'm so sorry there's nothing to do in this place," Emerald shot back and stuck her tongue out at him.

Cinder sat up, "In the very least, at least Roman seems to have placed himself in a position to take further action if we need him to, I wonder what happened to that little mischief-maker of his? We haven't heard anything from her since the-"

Loud rapping noises sounded that made them all tense and turn their heads to where it was coming from, their dorm room window. Being the closest, Cinder got off her bed and cautiously walked to the window, being prepared to retaliate in the event that it was some kind of trick or trap. With both hands she threw the window open and a gust of wind swept into the room, a moment later and Neapolitan appeared right on top of one of the window panes.

"Speak of the devil… and _she_ shall appear." Mercury noted with a smirk.

"So what have you been up to?" Cinder folded her arms, "And why has it taken so long for you to report in? Just because Roman is in captivity is no excuse for this delay." The half-maiden opened one hand and let a small flame dance in it just to ensure that the miscreant knew exactly who she was dealing with.

If the ice-cream themed woman was perturbed at all by the display she gave not a single hint of it, instead she merely extended one hand down, and in that hand she held a single, small thumb-drive. Neo edged it closer to

"What's that supposed to be?" Cinder questioned, although at the same time realising that it was fruitless to try and converse with the mute. Neo said nothing in response, and only held it closer, seemingly willing Cinder to take it.

Cinder did in any case, slowly taking the drive away from its owner, her eyes flickering between the object and the person. The instant the scroll left Neo's hands she vanished with a cracking of glass into thin air, the windowpane creaked as if a weight was lifted off of it and just like that, she was gone with not a trace left behind.

"Gone with the wind." Mercury seemed to be unable to resist adding.

"How I wish you were too." Emerald sarcastically remarked.

"You know you wouldn't have a clue without me."

"Yeah right, as if."

Ignoring the snippy remarks that her two companions were constantly firing back and forth between each other, Cinder sat on her bed and inserted the drive into her scroll, a video quickly emerged and began playing on the screen.

And as it slowly played, the most fiendish grin imaginable spread across Cinder's face as she came to the realisation of just what the piece of information in her hands could do to the current political climate if it were released at _just_ the right time imaginable…well it could potentially wipe out any good feelings that had been generated between the populace and the Atlesian Military, as well as plant the seed for future hatreds. She fingered the scroll as the video finished playing and she looked out of the window, yes…she could almost imagine it now, the terror, the strife, the wanton destruction that would break the city in two…

 _Soon, very soon now,_ She chuckled to herself, _The pieces are almost in place._

* * *

 **Just in case anyone gets the wrong idea, Glynda isn't referring to "romantic" as in romantic love; she's referring to "romantic" as in romanticism. The idea being of course the age old image of the knight in shining armor carrying the day forward as the hero of the people with his companions.**

 **Forgive me if the ceremony feels overly pompous, I'd think that it would probably be that way in order to take everyone's minds off of the bad shit that went down just a few days ago, dress everything up as nicely as possible and make everything doubly dramatic, it helps the masses stay calm and feel positive and good about themselves in a "humanity fuck yeah" kinda way.**

 **Also, you're probably wondering why I decided to try and make a tribute to the real heroes in some fantasy series where they don't technically matter at all and will probably follow up by asking if it was necessary at all.**

 **Answer: Probably not.**

 **It felt like something Jaune might've done though in the absence of anything proper to actually say about the whole thing, so if you're just going to come up with something to say may as well just include a tribute to the real heroes because why not? Most fantasy/sci-fi series rarely delve into the whole "What is anyone who isn't someone important doing?" (Unless that series is Warhammer Fantasy or Warhammer 40K, in which its mandatory to mention how the empire/imperial guard have balls made of steel)**


End file.
